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51-555: Although it lasted only twenty-three years (1933–1956) and enrolled fewer than 1,200 students, Black Mountain College was one of the most fabled experimental institutions in art education and practice. It launched a remarkable number of the artists who spearheaded the avant-garde in the America of the 1960s. It boasted an extraordinary curriculum in the visual , literary , and performing arts . The literary movement traditionally described as

102-810: A different direction, adopting colloquial speech in their work. In the 1960s, a renewed sense of nation helped foster new voices: Margaret Atwood , Michael Ondaatje , Leonard Cohen , Alden Nowlan Eli Mandel and Margaret Avison . Others such as Al Purdy , Milton Acorn , and Earle Birney , already published, produced some of their best work during this period. The late 1960s and early 1970s saw greater experimentation from poets such as bpNichol , Lionel Kearns , David UU , Joe Rosenblatt , Steve McCaffery , Judith Copithorne and bill bissett . The TISH Poetry movement in Vancouver brought about poetic innovation from Jamie Reid , George Bowering , Fred Wah , Frank Davey , Daphne Marlatt , and David Cull . Since

153-600: A feature which defined contemporary American poets. Their work became characterized by open form. Olson's pedagogical approach to poetry emphasized the importance of personal experience and direct observation, something which greatly influenced the Black Mountain poets. Many of the Black Mountain poets, including Levertov, Duncan, and Dorn, explored individual agency's potential to affect collective change through their political poetry. In 1950 , Charles Olson published his seminal essay, Projective Verse . In this, he called for

204-489: A gate house, dining hall, sleeping lodges, several cottages and other structures. In May 1941, following the end of their lease at Blue Ridge Assembly, the College moved its operations to Lake Eden, where it remained until its closing in 1957. Over these 16 years, College faculty, staff, and students established a working farm and constructed new buildings, including the iconic Studies Building designed by architect A. Lawrence Kocher , music rehearsal cubicles (Paul Beidler),

255-470: A poetry of "open field" composition to replace traditional closed poetic forms with an improvised form that should reflect exactly the content of the poem. This form was to be based on the line, and each line was to be a unit of breath and of utterance. Olson felt that English poetry had become restricted by meter, syntax and rhyme instead of embracing the more natural constraints of breath and syllables which he felt would define true American poetics. The content

306-448: A profound effect on Québec literature and provided the impetus for the first Surrealist poetry published in Canada, Les Sables du rêve (The Sands of Dream) by Thérèse Renaud , with drawings by Jean-Paul Mousseau , published by Les Cahiers de la files indienne in 1946. This was followed by the formation of Les Automatistes movement, a militant group of poets, painters and dancers, and

357-476: A seminal academic freedom incident, specifically for refusing to sign a loyalty pledge, for which Rollins was formally censured by the American Association of University Professors . The institution was established to "avoid the pitfalls of autocratic chancellors and trustees and allow for a more flexible curriculum," and "with the holistic aim 'to educate a student as a person and a citizen.'" The school

408-686: A surgeon in the Canadian Army, wrote the famous war poem " In Flanders Fields ". After the war, in Newfoundland, E. J. Pratt described the struggle to make a living from the sea in poems about maritime life and the history of Canada; while in central Canada, poets such as Ralph Gustafson and Raymond Knister were moving away from traditional verse forms. During the 1920s and 1930s, the Montreal Group (a circle of young poets which included A.J.M. Smith , A.M. Klein , and F. R. Scott ) helped inspire

459-525: A uniquely Canadian perspective. The minority French Canadian poetry, primarily from Quebec , blossomed in the 19th century, moving through Modernism and Surrealism in the 20th century, to develop a unique voice filled with passion, politics and vibrant imagery. Montreal , with its exposure to both English and French poetry, became a hotbed of poetic progress with movements such as the Montreal Group and Les Automatistes , and notable poets such as Irving Layton and Leonard Cohen . Toronto (centered on

510-538: Is entitled Dover Beach Revisited . The first book written in verse by a Canadian was Épîtres, Satires, Chansons, Épigrammes et Autres Pièces de vers by Michel Bibaud , published in 1830. A group of French-speaking poets and authors belonging to the Mouvement littéraire came to Ottawa from Quebec City when the civil service moved to Ottawa in 1870. This group included Alfred Garneau , Antoine Gerin-Lajoie , Achilles Frechette and others. They are considered some of

561-585: The Bohemian Embassy Coffee House and bpNichol ’s grOnk ) and Vancouver (with the Downtown Poets and the TISH group) also developed as important poetry centers. In the later 20th century, a growing awareness of Native identity coupled with the struggle for Indigenous rights , fostered the growth of writing by Native Canadians. The earliest works of poetry, mainly written by visitors, described

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612-571: The Canadian Authors Association in 1936. Traditional verse was what sold in Canada all through this period; and it was what Canadian Poetry Magazine emphasized. Wilson MacDonald was a top selling Canadian poet of the time. Following World War II , a new breed of poets appeared, writing for a well-educated audience. These included James Reaney , Jay Macpherson and Leonard Cohen . Meanwhile, some maturing authors such as Irving Layton , Raymond Souster , and Louis Dudek , moved in

663-831: The Governor General's Awards , the Griffin Poetry Prize , the Gerald Lampert Award , and the Pat Lowther Award . The Jackpine Sonnet is a form devised by Milton Acorn , designed to be as irregular and spikey (and Canadian) as a jack pine tree, but with internal structure and integrity. Of no fixed length and with erratic line lengths, the Jackpine Sonnet depends on interweaving internal rhymes , assonance and occasional end- rhymes . Tom MacInnes reportedly invented "a five-line stanza of his own he called

714-551: The Jim Crow era. Notable African-American instructors included Carol Brice and Roland Hayes during the 1945 Summer Music Institute; Percy H. Baker, hired on full-time in 1945; Jacob Lawrence and Gwendolyn Knight during the 1946 Summer Art Institute; and Mark Oakland Fax for the Spring 1946 quarter. The Julius Rosenwald Fund provided African-American teachers' salaries as well as student scholarships. The college originally rented

765-608: The YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly buildings south of Black Mountain, North Carolina, founded and owned by another progressive educator, Willis D. Weatherford . In 1937, it purchased a 667-acre (270 ha) property across the valley at Lake Eden. This property, developed by E.W. Grove (of the Grove Park Inn and Grove Arcade in Asheville) as a summer resort for residents of his nearby Grovemont neighborhood, included

816-661: The official languages of English and French , and an increasingly prominent body of work in both other European and Indigenous languages . Although English Canadian poetry began to be written soon after European colonization began, many of English-speaking Canada’s first celebrated poets come from the Confederation period of the mid to late 19th century. In the 20th century, Anglo-Canadian poets embraced European and American poetic innovations, such as Modernism , Confessional poetry , Postmodernism , New Formalism , Concrete and Visual poetry , and Slam , but always turned to

867-577: The "Black Mountain Poets" centered around Charles Olson , who became a teacher at the college in 1948. Robert Creeley , who worked as a teacher and editor of the Black Mountain Review for two years, is considered to be another major figure. Creeley moved to San Francisco in 1957. There, he acted as a link between the Black Mountain poets and the Beats , many of whom he had published in the review. Members of

918-534: The 'mirelle'." The Viator poem form was invented by British author and poet Robin Skelton . It consists of any stanzaic form in which the first line of the first stanza is the second line of the second stanza and so on until the poem ends with the line with which it began. The term, Viator comes from the Latin for traveller . An example of Skelton's form may be found in his reference book, The Shapes of our Singing , and

969-479: The 1880s and 1890s. Choosing the world of nature as their inspiration, their work was drawn from their own experiences and, at its best, written in their own tones. Isabella Valancy Crawford , Frederick George Scott , Francis Sherman , and Annie Campbell Huestis are also sometimes associated with this group. During this period, E. Pauline Johnson and William Henry Drummond were writing popular poetry - Johnson's based on her part- Mohawk heritage, and Drummond,

1020-417: The 1930s and 1940s the school flourished, becoming well known as an incubator for artistic talent. Notable events at the school were common; it was here that the first large-scale geodesic dome was made by faculty member Buckminster Fuller and students, where Merce Cunningham formed his dance company, and where John Cage staged his first musical happening . In the 1950s, the focus of the school shifted to

1071-402: The 1990s, several Governor General's Award -winning poets, in particular Jan Zwicky and Tim Lilburn , have been engaged in nonfiction writing that maps the relationships between poetry and philosophy. Zwicky's "Lyric Philosophy" and "Wisdom and Metaphor", as well as Lilburn's collection "Thinking and Singing", are representative works. A younger generation of Canadian poets has been expanding

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1122-542: The Atlantic , Naropa University , the University of California, Santa Cruz , and Marlboro College to The Evergreen State College , Hampshire College , Shimer College , Prescott College , Goddard College , World College West (1973–1992), and New College of Florida , among others, including Warren Wilson College located just minutes down the road from where Black Mountain College was located. Bennington College , based on

1173-612: The Beats, the Black Mountain poets influenced the course of later American poetry via their importance for the poets later identified with the Language School . They were also important for the development of the innovative British Poetry Revival of the 1960s, as evidenced by such poets as Tom Raworth and J. H. Prynne . In Canada , the Vancouver -based TISH group, including George Bowering and Daphne Marlatt , were heavily influenced by

1224-564: The Black Mountain Poets include students and teachers at Black Mountain, together with their friends and correspondents. The term was first coined by Donald Allen in his anthology The New American Poetry 1945–1960 (which divides the poets included in its pages into various schools ). He included Olson, Creeley, Ed Dorn , Robert Duncan , Denise Levertov , Larry Eigner , Joel Oppenheimer , Jonathan Williams , Paul Blackburn , and Paul Carroll in its members. Allen's definition of

1275-615: The Black Mountain poets proved to be crucial: it established a legacy and promoted their literary influence worldwide. However, the exact definition of the group is considered disputable. Olson described the term as "bullshit" and stated that they never considered themselves a particular "clique" or had a particular form of poetics . Other principal figures often included in the Black Mountain poets include John Wieners , M. C. Richards , Hilda Morley , Francine du Plessix Gray , Fielding Dawson , Paul Goodman , and Arthur Penn . The Black Mountain poets were largely free of literary convention,

1326-552: The Black Mountain poets. Modern projectivist poets include Charles Potts . Black Mountain College Black Mountain College was a private liberal arts college in Black Mountain, North Carolina . It was founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice , Theodore Dreier, and several others. The college was ideologically organized around John Dewey 's educational philosophy, which emphasized holistic learning and

1377-497: The British political and aesthetic jingoism of the period. For example, High Tory loyalist & occasional poet Thomas H. Higginson of Vankleek Hill, Ontario, produced paeans to Sir Francis Bond Head (Wm. Lyon Mackenzie's opponent) and the British war effort in the Crimea (such as Sonnet to Florence Nightingale and others), while producing some interesting nature verse exemplifying

1428-604: The Poet of the Habitant, writing dialect verse. In 1907 Robert W. Service 's Songs of a Sourdough , Kipling -type verse about the Klondike Gold Rush , became enormously popular: the book would go on to sell more than three million copies in the 20th century. His success would be inspired many other poets, such as Tom MacInnes . Marjorie Pickthall received much critical attention in this period. In 1915, John McCrae , serving as

1479-713: The Service Building (Lawrence Kocher), the Science Building (Paul Williams, Dan Rice, and Stan Vanderbeek ), the Minimum House (designed by students), the Jalowetz House (Lawrence Kocher), and the Quiet House (a memorial to Mark Dreier designed by Alex "Bill" Reed). The property was later purchased and converted to an ecumenical Christian boys' residential summer camp ( Camp Rockmont ). This has been used for years as

1530-534: The US, and a number of them settled at Black Mountain, most notably Josef Albers , who was selected to run the art program, and his wife Anni Albers , who taught weaving and textile design. Adolf Hitler's rise to power and the subsequent persecution taking place in Europe led many artists and intellectuals to flee and resettle in the US, populating Black Mountain College with an influx of both students and faculty. In addition,

1581-570: The all-pervasive influence of Wordsworth 's view of nature and the sublime. In 1857, Charles Heavysege attracted international (British and American) attention for his verse drama Mari na de Saul . The first book of poetry published in Canada following the formation of the new Dominion of Canada in 1867 was Dreamland by Charles Mair (1868). A group of poets now known as the " Confederation Poets ", including Charles G. D. Roberts , Archibald Lampman , Bliss Carman , Duncan Campbell Scott , and William Wilfred Campbell , came to prominence in

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1632-472: The boundaries of originality: Brian Brett , Ken Babstock , Karen Solie , Lynn Crosbie , Patrick Lane , Stuart Ross , Sonnet L'Abbé , George Elliott Clarke and Barry Dempster have all imprinted their unique consciousnesses onto the map of Canadian imagery. A notable anthology of Canadian poetry is The New Oxford book of Canadian Verse , edited by Margaret Atwood ( ISBN   0-19-540450-5 ). Notable literary prizes for English Canadian poetry include

1683-460: The college was operating in the South during the period of legal racial segregation at other colleges and universities in the region. While not immune from racial tensions, the student Alma Stone Williams , an African-American woman who enrolled at Black Mountain College in 1944, is considered by some to be the first black student to enroll in an all-white institution of higher education in the South during

1734-576: The college's history and impact. The Journal of Black Mountain College Studies is a multidisciplinary open-access digital publication that publishes articles, essays, and creative work related to the school and the individuals associated with it. Black Mountain College was the subject of the museum exhibition Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933–1957, which opened at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston on October 10, 2015. The show

1785-671: The development of modernist poetry in Montreal through the McGill Fortnightly Review and the 1936 anthology New Provinces . The "new poetry" valued intellect over sentimentality, or as some have put it, logic over human emotions. Under the literary editorship of Earle Birney , the Canadian Forum helped promote similar developments in Toronto . Dorothy Livesay , born in Manitoba ,

1836-588: The life of the habitants, followed by Alfred Desrochers (1901–1978), a precursor to the "pays" school of poetry of Gaston Miron . In 1937, Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau published the first book of modernist poetry in French Canada, Regards et Jeux dans l'espace. Garneau's reputation increased in the 1950s after publication of his Complete Poems (1949) - as would that of his cousin, poet Anne Hébert (1916–2000). In 1944, Surrealist André Breton travelled to Québec, where he wrote Arcane 17 . His visit had

1887-556: The literary arts under the rectorship of Charles Olson . Olson founded The Black Mountain Review in 1954 and, together with his colleague and student Robert Creeley , developed the poetic school of Black Mountain poets . Additionally, the College was an important incubator for the American avant-garde . Black Mountain proved to be an important precursor to and prototype for many of the alternative colleges of today, ranging from College of

1938-412: The most important poets and writers in 19th Century French Canada. Octave Crémazie is considered the father of French Canadian poetry. His poetry and that of his follower Louis Fréchette are romantic of form and patriotic in inspiration. At the same time, Pamphile Le May was writing intimist poetry about the simple farm life and Alfred Garneau wrote his feelings. L'École littéraire de Montréal

1989-477: The new territories in optimistic terms, mainly targeted at a European audience. One of the first works was Robert Hayman 's Quodlibets , composed in Newfoundland and published in 1628. With the growth of English language communities near the end of the 18th century, poetry aimed at local readers began to appear in local newspapers. These writings were mainly intended to reflect the prevailing cultural values of

2040-885: The same philosophy, was founded one year before Black Mountain College. The school operated using non-hierarchical methodologies that placed students and educators on the same plane. Revolving around 20th-century ideals about the value and importance of balancing education, art, and cooperative labor, students were required to participate in farm work, construction projects, and kitchen duty as part of their holistic education. The students were involved at all levels of institutional decision-making. They were also left in charge of deciding when they were ready to graduate, which notoriously few ever did. There were no course requirements, official grades (except for transfer purposes), or accredited degrees. Graduates were presented with handcrafted diplomas as purely ceremonial symbols of their achievement. The liberal arts program offered at Black Mountain

2091-465: The school was unable to sustain itself financially given the greatly decreased number of students. In 1962, the school's books were finally closed, with all debts covered. The Black Mountain College Museum & Arts Center , founded in 1933, continues the legacy of Black Mountain College through talks, exhibitions, performances, collection and preservation, and an annual fall conference that examines

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2142-623: The site of the Black Mountain Festival, the Lake Eden Arts Festival (LEAF), and Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center 's {Re}HAPPENING. A number of the original structures are still in use as lodgings or administrative facilities, and two frescoes painted by Jean Charlot remain intact on the site. Black Mountain College closed in 1957, eight years after Albers left to direct the first design department at Yale . The college suspended classes by court order due to debts;

2193-562: The study of art as central to a liberal arts education . Many of the college's faculty and students were or would go on to become highly influential in the arts, including Josef and Anni Albers , Ruth Asawa , John Cage , Robert Creeley , Merce Cunningham , Max Dehn , Elaine de Kooning , Willem de Kooning , Buckminster Fuller , Walter Gropius , Ray Johnson , Franz Kline , Robert Motherwell , Charles Olson , Robert Rauschenberg , M. C. Richards , Dorothea Rockburne , Michael Rumaker , Aaron Siskind and Cy Twombly . Although it

2244-615: The time and were modeled after English poetry of the same period. Oliver Goldsmith's long poem The Rising Village appeared in 1825. It was a response to The Deserted Village by his namesake and great-uncle Oliver Goldsmith . In the first half of the 19th century, poetic works began to reflect local subjects. Acadia by Joseph Howe and The Saint Lawrence and the Saguenay by Charles Sangster are examples of this trend. Early nationalistic verses were composed by writers including Thomas D'Arcy McGee . Many "regional" poets also espoused

2295-468: Was an important contributor to the Toronto movement. The Maritimes remained a holdout for traditional verse. The Song Fishermen of Halifax were a magnet for new poetic talent in the late 1920s due to having Bliss Carman and Charles G.D. Roberts as members. The most notable of the new poets were the sonneteers Kenneth Leslie and Robert Norwood. The Canadian Poetry Magazine was founded by Pelham Edgar of

2346-552: Was broad, and supplemented by art making as a means of cultivating creative thinking within all fields. While Josef Albers led the school, the only two requirements were a course on materials and form taught by Albers and a course on Plato. In 1933, the Nazis shut down the Bauhaus in Germany, a similarly progressive arts-based educational institution. Many of the school's faculty left Europe for

2397-550: Was curated by Helen Molesworth with Ruth Erickson. The show later exhibited at the Hammer Museum from February 21 to May 15, 2016. Black Mountain College was featured in Nicholas Sparks ' novel, The Longest Ride (2013) and the 2015 movie adaptation of the same name. Canadian poetry Canadian poetry is poetry of or typical of Canada . The term encompasses poetry written in Canada or by Canadian people in

2448-500: Was not a literary school but a group of poets that met regularly. In reaction to the earlier following of the romantic Victor Hugo , they took later schools (such as the Parnassian or symbolism ) as their masters. The group included Émile Nelligan , a young poet who stopped writing at only 19 years of age due to mental illness. Outside Montreal, other poets, such as Nérée Beauchemin (1850–1931) continued Pamphile Le May's depiction of

2499-471: Was originally funded through a $ 10,000 gift from "Mac" Forbes, a former Rollins College faculty member, after the founders were unable to raise funds from traditional sources. Black Mountain was experimental in nature and committed to an interdisciplinary approach, prioritizing art-making as a necessary component of education and attracting a faculty and lecturers that included many of America's leading visual artists, composers, poets, and designers. During

2550-592: Was quite notable during its lifetime, the school closed in 1957 after 24 years due to funding issues; Camp Rockmont for Boys now sits on the campus' site. The history and legacy of Black Mountain College are preserved and extended by the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center , located in downtown Asheville , North Carolina. Black Mountain College was founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice , Theodore Dreier, Frederick Georgia, and Ralph Lounsbury, who were dismissed as faculty from Rollins College in

2601-443: Was to consist of "one perception immediately and directly (leading) to a further perception". This essay was to become a kind of de facto manifesto for the Black Mountain poets. One of the effects of narrowing the unit of structure in the poem down to what could fit within an utterance was that the Black Mountain poets developed a distinctive style of poetic diction (e.g. "yr" for "your"). Apart from their strong interconnections with

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