My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer

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Wesleyan University Press, Nov 30, 2008 - Poetry - 465 pages

An essential collection of a highly original American poet

Winner of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Award for Poetry (2009)
Winner of the American Book Award (2009)

In 1965, when the poet Jack Spicer died at the age of forty, he left behind a trunkful of papers and manuscripts and a few copies of the seven small books he had seen to press. A West Coast poet, his influence spanned the national literary scene of the 1950s and '60s, though in many ways Spicer's innovative writing ran counter to that of his contemporaries in the New York School and the West Coast Beat movement. Now, more than forty years later, Spicer's voice is more compelling, insistent, and timely than ever. During his short but prolific life, Spicer troubled the concepts of translation, voice, and the act of poetic composition itself. My Vocabulary Did This to Me is a landmark publication of this essential poet's life work, and includes poems that have become increasingly hard to find and many published here for the first time.

 

Contents

III
5
V
6
VII
10
VIII
13
X
14
XI
15
XII
16
XIII
18
LII
63
LIII
64
LIV
65
LV
69
LVI
73
LVII
74
LVIII
95
LIX
97

XIV
19
XV
20
XVI
21
XVII
22
XIX
23
XX
24
XXI
25
XXII
26
XXIII
31
XXIV
35
XXV
37
XXVII
38
XXIX
39
XXXI
40
XXXII
41
XXXIII
43
XXXIV
45
XXXV
46
XXXVI
47
XXXVII
48
XXXVIII
51
XXXIX
53
XLI
54
XLII
55
XLIII
56
XLV
57
XLVII
58
XLIX
60
L
61
LI
62
LX
99
LXI
105
LXII
155
LXIII
169
LXIV
179
LXV
180
LXVI
183
LXVII
192
LXVIII
193
LXIX
203
LXX
217
LXXI
223
LXXII
230
LXXIII
233
LXXIV
235
LXXV
247
LXXVI
315
LXXVII
323
LXXVIII
328
LXXIX
329
LXXX
359
LXXXI
365
LXXXII
371
LXXXIII
403
LXXXIV
429
LXXXV
437
LXXXVI
455
LXXXVII
457
LXXXVIII
461
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About the author (2008)

PETER GIZZI is the author of six collections of poetry including Threshold Songs and In Defense of Nothing. He works at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

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