This book is far more than a typical anthology of poems, it successfully conveys the radical and unique spirit of Black Mountain College (BMC). For those who may not be familiar with this college, it was a place of ‘special, or a different way’ of teaching and learning located in North Carolina, USA. The college started up in 1933 and operated until 1957. Over this period, it attracted some of the most talented individuals from around the world both as teachers and students, and then produced many extraordinary, and consequently famous “creatives”, such as John Cage, Buckminster Fuller, Charles Olson, Josef Albers et al.

The college developed a “...radical form of learning infused with the arts and animated by democratic ideals.” Further, “The school’s curriculum included lectures, classes, study time, performances, and even daily work on the farm...the school founders, faculty, and associates envisioned a better, progressive, open, tolerant, and inclusive community, and by analogy a better world. This anthology celebrates that community and aims to follow the school’s inclusive mission” (p. xvii). It presents a large number of poetic voices; it seems that most of the individuals at the college wrote poetry solely or in conjunction with their other activities. Even “Bucky” Buckminster Fuller, a polymath genius, who inspired me greatly when I was a young architectural student wrote poetry, this revelation amazed me! Also John Cage, whose music inspires some of my own poetry now wrote poetry at BMC.

“This anthology is for everyone interested in poetry, for those seeking to learn more about BMC, for those interested in BMC’s influence, for teachers seeking a great collection that instils a love of poetry as it informs, and for scholars who are busy at work enlarging our understanding of the college and continuing the conversation.” (p. xxi)

The book is very well researched, it seems writing, editing and preparing it was an extended “labour of love”. Locating and collecting the various biographies, collating the poetry, and sorting the history of the college was a mammoth task. The book features a Preface (by Hobby), an Introduction (by Porco) and then is arranged in a kind of hierarchical order which starts with the faculty as follows:

Part I – Faculty

Part II – Visiting Faculty

Part III – Students

Part IV – Affiliates

Each of these sections has a one page biography of the individual and then examples of their poetry. These major sections are followed by Acknowledgments, Appendix, Notes, Works Cited and Further Readings.

The styles of the BMC poets are amazingly varied from almost traditional verse to highly experimental works. I will give just two examples to illustrate this: Firstly, Albers (BMC Faculty), who was very proud of his short poems is best known as a designer and painter, he trained at the Bauhaus in Germany before fleeing the country due to Hitler’s regime and started teaching at BMC after arriving in America, below two examples of his poems:

(1) The aim of life

is living creatures

The aim of art

is living creations

(2) Calm down

what happens

happens mostly

without you

Secondly, John Cage (Visiting Faculty) best known for his radical musical compositions inspired by ‘chance’ and the I Ching, and for ‘preparing’ the piano, also wrote highly experimental poetry, below the first few lines of his major poem, Writing through the Cantos:

and thEn with bronZe lance heads beaRing yet Arms

sheeP slain Of plUto stroNg praised

thE narrow glaZes the uptuRned nipple As

sPeak tO rUy oN his gooDs

No book of this kind can expect to be totally inclusive of all the faculty and students of the college, especially when considering the number of years the college was active, however I was surprised that John Chamberlain, the famous American sculptor (and poet) is not included. He was at BMC in 1955, writing poetry, making a small number of sculptures and “hanging out” with many of the people mentioned throughout this book. His poetry has been afforded its own publication titled Black Mountain Chamberlain (ed. Julie Sylvester). I reviewed this book for Leonardo some time ago. [1]

I believe this book is an important addition to the literature concerning BMC and will serve as an important reference and resource for scholars involved with this, at the time, unique educational facility. As Alessandro Porco in his extensive, highly informative introduction says:

“The Anthology of Black Mountain College Poetry serves as an essential guide to be studied, tested, and debated by new generations of students, researchers, and general readers. The poets at BMC share in the responsibility to make a better world.” (p. 19)

Notes [1] https://leonardo.info/review/2020/08/black-mountain-chamberlain-john-chamberlains-writings-at-black-mountain-college-1955.