GOAT DANCES

Santa Barbara, CA: Black Sparrow Press, 1976. 1st Edition . Soft cover. Near Fine/None as Issued. Text/New. Vintage 1976, First Edition, First Thus. Softcover/Fine w/trace surface wear & spotting to upper text block. Anthology of poetry & prose. Last published work from Philippine born American poet, novelist & teacher Ronald William Loewinsohn (1937- 2014). Loewinsohn, recognized San Francisco Renaissance poet in Donald Allen's 1960,"The New American Poetry 1945-1960" --- who, 7years later in 1967, graduates from Berkeley, 11 years before earning a Harvard doctorate (dissertation: William Carlos Williams) 1n 1971, to teach in the Dept of English at Berkeley (1970 - 2005) for the remainder of his life; his papers are archived at Stanford. Goat Dances, his last published work, demonstrates the powers of language. "Goat Dance", he says, "Is when things are most clear". The opening essay, "May I Have This Dance," takes Pound's meaning of logopoeia (the dance of the intellect among words) as "the dance of the syllables --- a metaphor of one touching & moving in relation to another who is also touching & moving". That is, like bodies musically in dance, bend close & draw apart, so do all various creative & cognitive processes. The anthology combines the mundane ("All the possible is in your brown / hair", focus on physical detail ("the coronae of the furniture in the early / morning streetlight filtering thru the blinds", with sudden moves to racy, anti-poetic language ("o bright tits of the world!"). In 145 pgs. An intellectual engagement, the collection uses full powers of language, as Loewinsohn says, "Goat Dances is that state when things are most clear".