Robert Duncan Martinized (1 Viewer)

I'm reading a book on the poet Robert Duncan by Patrick O'Leary and apparently there was a serious altercation with Martin. Black Sparrow was going to publish a book of Duncan's but the book was never published. I wondered why this happened. One source of the disagreement may have been the following, see middle of first full paragraph: "Taggart edited a literary journal called Maps during the 1960s and seventies. Maps #6 was dedicated to Duncan and his work. In addition to unpublished material, the issue included essays on Duncan's work by Ronald Johnson, Ron Silliman, and Wendy MacIntyre. Perhaps the most striking feature of the issue, however, is the introduction Duncan wrote for it, in which he berates John Martin, publisher of Black Sparrow Press, for making 'unauthorized amendments' to Duncan's text in his Tribunals: Passages 31-35, which was published by Black Sparrow in a deluxe edition in 1970. Duncan's anger at Martin is considerable; he describes his grievances in detail for several pages. This description turns into a polemic against all publishers and a manifesto for the use of the typewriter as a modern tool with which poets can get around the idiocies of typesetters."

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I found a pdf online of Duncan's "Preface" to Maps 6 in which describes what Martin did to his text...Very interesting....Here are the first three pages...

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Here I thought I was getting something juicy, but all I got was a headache and a (ridiculously overwrought and laughably pretentious) complaint about book formatting.

A legitimate complaint I suppose, but not really in the same ballpark as what Martin did to Bukowski. If Bukowski's work was repeatedly and methodically raped, this guy's work got an unwelcome pat on the ass at a Knob Hill tea party.

I think the world would have been done a favor if Duncan's fingers were breakt.

Just saying.
 

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