Publisher's Synopsis
Normal0falsefalsefalseEN-GBX-NONEX-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 For the first time the vast, experimental totality of Gunslinger poet Edward Dorn's work is collected in a single volume. After studying with Charles Olson at Black Mountain College, Dorn took on the American West, developing an unmistakeable voice, 'as evocative as a lonesome train whistle in the night'. Olson praised his 'Shakespearean ear for syllables'. Taking his bearings from Pound and Williams, he found his own way, a pioneer in the old American way. "From near the beginning I have known my work to be theoretical in nature and poetic by virtue of its inherent tone." Peter Ackroyd considers him 'the only plausible, political poet in America […] one of the masters of our contemporary language.' If Gunslinger is his major poem, the work that anticipates and surrounds it, wonderfully resourceful in tone and idiom, puts him on an equal footing with his masters.
The book includes an introduction by Jennifer Dorn, the poet's widow, an appreciation by J.H. Prynne and an afterword by Amiri Baraka.
Cover Image: Philip Behymer, Edward Dorn. Acrylic on Canvas. 42" x 36". 1982 (photo: Jennifer Dunbar Dorn)
Edited with a preface by Jennifer Dunbar Dorn, with Justin Katko, Reitha Pattison and Kyle Waugh
