The opening of the field

by Robert Edward Duncan

Paperback, 1960

Status

Available

Tags

Collection

Publication

[New York, New Directions Pub. Corp., 1973, c1960]

Description

Speaking of his own work, Robert Duncan (1919-1987) said: I make poetry as other men make war or make love or make states or revolutions: to exercise my faculties at large." The Opening of the Field, his first major collection, was originally brought out in 1960; in it, Duncan introduced his "Structures of Rime," the open series he continued in his subsequent collections, Roots and Branches (1964) and Bending the Bow (1968), Ground Work: Before the War (1983), and Ground Work II: In the Dark (1987). "Structures of Rime" affirms his belief in the universal integrity of the poem itself in the living process of language. Thus in "The Structure of Rime I" he declares: "O Lasting Sentence, / sentence after sentence I make in your image. In the feet that measure the dance of my pages I hear cosmic intoxications of the man I will be." "… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member dawnpen
Dear Opening of the Feild, you are a prayerful and extensive book. You are a fucking book. You get the book the opening the measure. You hammer it to the wall end rhymed allude to. You fly out. Big city of time on the grass, tangled in the feet of the grass. How inspiring to get the drift, reading
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on saturday on the ships of July, the scissors of the water and the pouring out of time. Into this book, R. Duncan, yours dawn.
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LibraryThing member whitewavedarling
The most powerful poems here are those dealing with language and art/creation. It's an interesting and complex collection, but one which requires concentration and an acceptance of complexity. I'm not always sure that Duncan isn't more concerned with experimentation and language-play than any
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meaning, but there are Some poems here which I know I'll be returning to---those poems alone made it well worth my time.
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Awards

National Book Award (Finalist — Poetry — 1961)

Language

Barcode

1879
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