"No Ideas but in Things": Influences on Black Mountain Poetry
The Charles Olson Society will host panels at the upcoming Re-Viewing Black Mountain College Conference, to be held in Asheville, North Carolina, from October 13th-15th. William Carlos Williams’ well-known like, “No Ideas but in Things,” fits well with the conference theme this year, which focuses on materiality. For the poets associated with Black Mountain College – Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Robert Creeley, John Wieners, Ed Dorn, Denise Levertov, and others – preceding modernist poets were figures to follow and to oppose in various ways. From Ezra Pound to Williams, Gertrude Stein to James Joyce, the modernist generation’s experimental practices inspired Black Mountain poetry while also creating tension.