This Compost: Ecological Imperatives in American Poetry

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments For early interest and support I am indebted to Charles Bernstein,Burton Hatlen, andJames Hillman,who published extracts in L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E/Open Letter (1982), Sagetrieb (1982 and 1983), and the Jungian annual of archetypal psychology Spring (1979). Other material from This Compost was published by Barrett Watten and Lyn Hejinian in Poetics Journal (1982), Andrew Benson in Adz (1983), and Paul Naylor, who made a handy selection for Facture (2000) and also offered crucial guidance for final revisions. I owe special thanks to Lyn Hejinian for advice about the title and to Bob Grenier for giving it to me straight. Harvey Brown offered invaluable scrutiny of my first draft in 1981, and Mark Ruddick provided the setting for the second draft. Readers for the University of Georgia Press offered welcome encouragement, and I'm indebted to the precision of their suggestions about bringing the manuscript to completion. Barbara Ras's heartening reception of the manuscript presages a notably smooth path to production at the University of Georgia Press, particularly under the watchful eye of Jon Davies. Financial assistance from the AdvisoryResearch Council of Queen's University, along with some funds from a Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada grant, expedited completion ofthe manuscript. To that end, the assistance of Nathan Brown was particularly valuable. This Compost could not have been written without years of exchange with many of the poets it discusses. Their friendship and generosity enhanced this book in countless ways (not least in access to manuscripts long before they were published ). I regret that too many of them are no longer alive to accept this longdelayed record of my thanks: Robert Duncan,Jack Clarke, RonaldJohnson, Paul Metcalf, George Butterick and Lee Hickman. Exemplary companions, for whom in every immediate sense I wrote the book, are Don Byrd, Chuck Stein, Gerrit Lansing, Ken Irby, Andrew Schelling, Nate Mackey, Will Alexander,Jerry and Diane Rothenberg, Clayton and Caryl Eshleman. I would also mention Duncan McNaughton, Robert Creeley, Robert Bertholf, Michael McClure, Robin Blaser, Jackson Mac Low, Bruce Andrews, Mike Boughn,James Hillman: tutelary spirits along the way.The sustainingground from beginning to end has been shared with Suzi Wong and Sonja and Hilda Rasula. xv This page intentionally left blank This Compost This page intentionally left blank ...