|
In
Memoriam
Paul
Metcalf 1917Ð1999
Paul
Metcalf, poet and author, died on January 21, 1999.
He was 81 years old.
A
Massachusetts native and great-grandson of Herman Melville,
Metcalf was the author of more than 20 books that have
been published by a variety of small presses, including
Coffee House Press, Jargon Society, North Point Press,
and the Dalkey Archive Press
In
search of the many facets of the American spirit, Metcalf’s
works encompassed ecology, ethnology, and multiculturalism,
utilitizing a literary style that erased the boundaries
between poetry and prose. His works present material
from a vast and eclectic range of sources, including
published books, diaries, travel narratives, scholarly
journals, musical notation, and newspaper articles,
fused into brilliant literary collages.
In
1996 and 1997, Coffee House Press published Collected
Works: Volume One, 1956-1976, with an introduction by
Guy Davenport, Volume Two, 1976-1986, and Volume Three,
1986-1997. Volume Three includes the debut of his latest
two significant works-Huascar‡n, a magnificent poetic
tribute to the Indians of Peru, and The Wonderful White
Whale of Kansas, a fascinating essay encompassing a
final look at Melville, The Wizard of Oz, and the concept
of home.
One
of the Black Mountain writers, Paul Metcalf studied
with Conrad Aiken and Charles Olson, and was honored
by The American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters
for his lifetime achievement. His work has been anthologized
in The American Equation: Literature in a Multi-Ethnic
Culture and The Moderns.
Metcalf
lived outside Chester, Massachusetts.
Pervading
all of Metcalf’s work is a tragic sense of the past,
of a grief for how far wrong we’ve gone, how uselessly
bloody our past has been, how ignorant we are of that
past, and how inscrutably strange our biological nature
is. He has no Polynesia to gaze at in vision like Melville
on his piazza. He has something better: a sense of wonder
that has led him to inquire minutely and insatiably
into the history of the New World and to trace its unsuspected
patterns that stir us into wonder, too. -Guy Davenport
|
