Category Archives: Twentieth century literature

World, Globe, Planet: UCLA

Posted on February 29, 2012 by wcd2

February 29, 2012 I’ve always loved the big white buildings of Berkeley, but the brick buildings of UCLA (russet and ochre, so different from the plain red of the east coast) must be more habitable? Royce Hall, with its twin … Continue reading →

Posted in African-American literature, Afro-Asian alliances, collaboration, Comparative literature, Global South, globe, peripheral networks, planet, public universities, Twentieth century literature, world literature | Tagged Ahmed Sékou Touré, Bandung Conference, Berkeley, Cesar Vallerjo, Frantz Fanon, Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Richard Wright, Sino-African alliance, UCLA, W B Yeats | 42 Comments

African-Native-American: Langston Hughes, Toni Morrison

Posted on February 15, 2012 by wcd2

February 15, 2012 Langston Hughes. African-American, of course. Yet a not insignificant fact about his biography is that his both his maternal grandparents, Mary Patterson and Charles Henry Langston, were of mixed races: African-American, Native American, and European. Hughes did … Continue reading →

Posted in African-American literature, contemporary poetry, mixed races, Native-American literature, slavery, Twentieth century literature | Tagged A Mercy, African American history, Ardelia Wilis, Charles Henry Hughes, John Solomon Willis, Langston Hughes, Mary Patterson Hughes, Native American history, Simon Ortiz, Song of Solomon, Tiya Miles, Toni Morrison | 65 Comments

Langston Hughes, Jacob Lawrence

Posted on February 8, 2012 by wcd2

February 8, 2012 Langston Hughes never went to Black Mountain College, but maybe he didn’t need to. 1948-49 was emblematic. A no doubt incomplete list of what happened during those months: in June 1948, Langston Hughes moved into 20 East … Continue reading →

Posted in abstract expressionism, collaboration, Cuban poetry, Media, Modernist poetry, print medium, Remediation, Translation, twentieth century art, Twentieth century literature, Visual arts | Tagged Arno Bontemps, Ben Frederic Carruthers, Black Mountain College, City Center, Cuba, Cuba Libre, Haiti, Home in a Box, Jacob Lawrence, Kurt Weill, Langston Hughes, New York, Nicolas Guillen, One-Way Ticket, Poetry of the Negro, Street Scene, Troubled Island, William Grant Still | 21 Comments

Black Mountain College

Posted on February 1, 2012 by wcd2

February 1, 2012 It’s a shame it was so short-lived. 1933-1957. Only 24 years. But maybe that’s the life-span one would expect from an entity like this: a mid-size player. That’s what Black Mountain College was. It didn’t have the … Continue reading →

Posted in abstract expressionism, Arts communities, Contemporary Art, Dance, Educational institutions, Experimental poetry, Interdisciplinarity, Modernist poetry, Music, Twentieth century literature, Visual arts | Tagged "Migration series", Alan Shapiro, Asheville, Black Mountain College, Buckminster Fuller, Charles Olson, Ellen Bruant Voigt, Heather McHugh, Jacob Lawrence, John Cage, legal persons, Merce Cunningham, NC, PBS "American Masters" series, Robert Creeley, Robert Duncan, Stephen Dobyns, Warren Wilson College | 1 Comment

Charles Olson: Call Me Ishmael

Posted on January 25, 2012 by wcd2

January 25, 2012 In the early 1930s, while writing his Master’s thesis on Melville, Charles Olson began tracking down the books once owned by Melville, some with significant marginalia. Melville’s widow had sold almost 500 of these books to a … Continue reading →

Posted in epic, Experimental poetry, Handwritten script, Media, Nineteenth-century literature, Renaissance literature, Twentieth century literature | Tagged "Letter for Melville 1951", Black Mountain College, Call Me Ishmael, Charles Olson, Cy Twonbley, John Cage, Mayan hieroglyphics, Melville, Queequeg, Robert Duncan, Robert Rauschenberg, Shakespeare, University of Connecticut | 2 Comments

Agha Shahid Ali’s “Call me Ishmael Tonight”

Posted on January 4, 2012 by wcd2

January 4, 2012 This was his last book of poems, published posthumously. Agha Shahid Agha had died of brain cancer on December 8, 2001. How important was Moby-Dick to the Kashmiri poet? Probably less than what Melvilleans would like to … Continue reading →

Posted in Islam, lyric, Near Eastern poetry, Nineteenth-century literature, Remediation, Translation, Twentieth century literature, world literature, World religions | Tagged Agha Shahid Ali, Amitav Ghosh, Arabic, Bible, Call Me Ishmael Tonight, Donald Hall, Edward Said, ghazal, Hayden Carruth, Kashmir, Mark Strand, Melville, Moby-Dick, Persian, Qur'an, W.S. Merwin | 62 Comments

Collaboration with Chance

Posted on December 21, 2011 by wcd2

December 21 On our Facebook page, Edgar Garcia posted a link to Jackson Mac Low’s Words nd Ends from Ez. Ezra Pound, of course. The two poets used to be friends, but they were no longer close when Mac Low … Continue reading →

Posted in epic, Experimental poetry, Music, Nineteenth-century literature, print medium, Remediation, Rock music, Twentieth century literature | Tagged Add new tag, chance, Experimental poetry, Ezra Pound, Herman Melville, Jackson Mac Low, John Bonham, John Cage, Led Zeppelin, Moby-Dick, Music, randomization, Rock music | 9 Comments