Ground Work: Before the War, In the DarkI am speaking now of the Dream in which America sleeps, the New World, moaning, floundering, in three hundred years of invasions, our own history out of Europe and enslaved Africa.Robert Duncan, from Groundwork Robert Duncan has been widely venerated as one of America's most essential poets: Allen Ginsberg described his poetry as "rapturous wonderings of inspiration," Gwendolyn Brooks called it "a subtle spice," and Susan Howe pointed to Duncan as "my precursor father," Lawrence Ferlinghetti said he "had the finest ear this side of Dante," and Robert Creeley called him "the magister, the singular Master of the Dance." Now Duncan's magnum opus, Groundwork, is available in one groundbreaking edition. The first volume, Groundwork I: Before the War, was published in 1984, after a fifteen-year publishing silence, and received immediate acclaim: it was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award and won the first National Poetry Award for Duncan's "lifetime devotion to the art of poetry and his grand achievement...." The second volume, Groundwork II: In the Dark, was published in February 1988, the month of Duncan's death. The internationally renowned poet Michael Palmer has written a marvelous introduction for this new edition, where "the singlemindedness of [Duncan's] life's work shows itself in the confident energy of every line" (Voice Literary Supplement). |
Contents
Songs of an Other | 144 |
Jamais Passages | 151 |
Eidolon of the Aion | 159 |
Circulations of the Song | 169 |
AN ALTERNATE LIFE | 183 |
TO MASTER BAUDELAIRE | 198 |
Le Sonnet où Sonne la Sonnette | 204 |
For the Assignment of the Spirit | 213 |
| 74 | |
John Norris of Bemerton Hymne | 93 |
We Will Endeavor | 99 |
In the Way of a Question | 106 |
The Work | 112 |
A Hard Task in Truth | 118 |
FOUR SUPPLEMENTARY ÉTUDES | 136 |
Styx | 219 |
REGULATORS | 239 |
OF THE FIVE SONGS | 256 |
Whose Passages | 263 |
After a Long Illness | 271 |
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Common terms and phrases
Angel beat beauty bird blood body breath bright burning caesura calld color comes command Convivio dance Dante dark death deep deep purple Denise Levertov depth divine draw dream Duncan earth Edom eternal Étude eyes face fall feel fire Five Songs flame flesh flood flow folding Circles follow thru ground grows hear heart Heaven Hesiod hidden hold horizon Iacchus language light lives Love lover Madame Defarge Malebolge meaning MICHAEL PALMER mind Mount Ida mouth moving Muse nature night numbers Okeanos Passages PAUL CELAN poem poet poetic poetry presence rage reaches realm Robert Duncan seek shadow shine sight silence sing sistrum sleep soul sound speak speech spirit stars STRUCTURE OF RIME sweet tears things thought thru thruout tongue tree truth turnd turns undo verse voice Vulgari Eloquentia waking wind wingd words
Popular passages
Page 45 - In the first place he is always poor, and anything but tender and fair, as the many imagine him; and he is rough and squalid, and has no shoes, nor a house to dwell in; on the bare earth exposed he lies under the open heaven...
Page 77 - My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns; Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns; The fuel justice layeth on, and mercy blows the coals; The metal in this furnace wrought are men's defiled souls: For which, as now on fire I am to work them to their good, So will I melt into a bath to wash them in my blood.
Page 112 - HAS been sufficiently shown that the work proper to the human race, taken as a whole, is to keep the whole capacity of the potential intellect constantly actualized, primarily for speculation, and secondarily (by extension, and for the sake of the other) for action. And since it is with the whole as it is with the part, and it is the fact that in sedentary quietness the individual man is perfected in knowledge and in wisdom, it is evident that in the quiet or tranquillity of peace the human race...
Page 84 - Christianity was introduced by the real Christians. Then with the true God, the true Dios, came the beginning of our misery. It was the beginning of tribute, the beginning of church dues, the beginning of strife with...
Page 90 - Upon her head she wears a crown of stars, Through which her orient hair waves to her waist, By which believing mortals hold her fast, And in those golden cords are carried even. Till with her breath she blows them up to heaven. She wears a robe enchased with eagles...
Page 82 - That I sought out quaint words, and trim invention ; My thoughts began to burnish, sprout, and swell, Curling with metaphors a plain intention, Decking the sense, as if it were to sell.
Page 113 - Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels.' t Whence it is manifest that universal peace is the best of those things which are ordained for our beatitude. Hence it is that not riches, not pleasures, not honors, not length of life, not health, not strength, not comeliness, was sung to the shepherds from on high, but peace.
Page 88 - She wears a robe enchased with eagles' eyes, To signify her sight in mysteries : Upon each shoulder sits a milk-white dove, And at her feet do witty serpents move: Her spacious arms do reach from east to west, And you may see her heart shine through her breast. Her right hand holds a sun with burning rays, Her left a curious bunch of golden keys With which heaven's gates she locketh and displays.
Page 77 - And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near, A pretty babe all burning bright did in the air appear; Who, scorched with excessive heat, such floods of tears did shed As though his floods should quench his flames which with his tears were fed. "Alas...
Page 80 - Who sayes that fictions onely and false hair Become a verse? Is there in truth no beautie? Is all good structure in a winding stair? May no lines passe, except they do their dutie Not to a true, but painted chair? Is it no verse, except enchanted groves And sudden arbours shadow course-spunne lines? Must purling streams refresh a lovers loves?