The concluding two volumes of the University of California’s magisterial commitment [magisterialis, from the Medieval Latin, master] – to Robert Duncan – a commitment to publishing his complete Collected Writings in four volumes (the first two volumes, the legendary H.D.Book and The Collected Early Poems and Plays, appearing at the beginning and end of last year, these last two, forthcoming in January, 2014) is, we at The Allen Ginsberg Project believe, cause for considerable celebration and excitement.
We should also perhaps mention (from the same publisher), Lisa Jarnot‘s definitive biography, Robert Duncan, The Ambassador from Venus, and from Richard Grossinger’s North Atlantic Books, the Christopher Wagstaff-edited A Poet’s Mind, Collected Interviews..
The newly-expanded and revised Michael Rumaker memoir, Robert Duncan in San Francisco is also well worth reading. And if all that weren’t enough, Duncan’s centrality within an all-too-neglected California visual art world is finally being recognized. An Opening of the Field, Jess, Robert Duncan, and Their Circle is the catalog to a groundbreaking show that will be opening at New York University’s Grey Gallery on January 14 (after which it will travel to Washington and Pasadena – the show originated this past summer in Sacramento at the Crocker Art Museum )
The Allen Ginsberg Project’s previous page of Duncan resources is here
Any mention of Duncan would be remiss without mentioning Jess He is central to the “Opening The Field” show, and is also well-served by a new book fromSiglio, Jess, O! Tricky Cad and Other Jessoterica
Patrick James Dunagan‘s review of the book (and of the “Opening The Field” catalog) is available here
An extraordinary Jess-Duncan collaboration, the “Scrapbook for Patricia Jordan” has been made available on-line by the Archives of American Art
Jess is now represented by the Tibor de Nagy Gallery