Our exhibition this summer is heavily geared towards architecture and design. With the video wall displays, and tables full of ephemera, it’s immersive. Next time you’re in the gallery though, take a peek at the small display near the books. It’ll give you a hint about the influential role BMC played in 20th century American Letters.
The Black Mountain Review 7
The first issues of The Black Mountain Review appeared in 1954 and were edited by Robert Creeley. That loosely associated group of poets known as the “Black Mountain poets” (Robert Creeley, Robert Duncan, Charles Olson, Denise Levertov, etc.) appear often in the Review.
The 7th and last issue – known as the “Beat” issue because of its concentration of artists and poets who were and would become influential within the Beat movement – was actually published in the fall of 1957, after the closure of College in 1956. Among the seminal works & writers featured in this unprepossessing little volume:
America by Allen Ginsberg
An excerpt from Naked Lunch by William Burroughs
“Bottom: On Shakespeare (Part II)” by Louis Zukofsky
An excerpt from “October in the Railroad Earth” by Jack Kerouac
“Changes: 3” by Gary Snyder
Cover art by Edward Corbett
