Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Dorn, Ed(ward) (Vol. 18) - Paul Christensen

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PAUL CHRISTENSEN

Dorn is the most prolific of the Black Mountain student poets…. Even in his first collection of poems, The Newly Fallen (1961), a youthful and uneven book, he showed an understanding of the techniques of open poetry. Many of the poems are breezy general commentaries on the failings of American culture, but several of the poems, "Sousa" in particular, display a sharply observant mind and a complex imagination….

It is apparent from his second volume, Hands Up! (1964), that Dorn requires a large, loosely structured format for his best work. His shorter poems are either petulant in their attacks upon the cheapness of Southwestern culture or blandly lyrical when he turns to the standard themes of love, friendship, and having children. (p. 203)

Dorn's poems typically invoke seemingly closed events and "resist" them with a multiplicity of perspectives and perceptions. But the poems [in Geography] are deliberately...

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1. Introduction
2. Paul Christensen
3. Andrew Crozier
4. Ben Howard
5. George Butterick
6. Copyright