BLACK MOUNTAIN

photo by me


BLACK MOUNTAIN

I found the Black Mountain poets impossible to read... the formatting of the poems just kept throwing me off, and I know I sometimes have problems with my own formatting but these were just hard to read. I found myself reading in the same mechanical voice every single author I read.

The hardest to understand for me was Paul Blackburn. Each poem was so...all over the place I had a hard time distinguishing one poem from the next. If the dates and the names of the poems weren't in our anthology I would probably have a really really really big headache right now. But because there are dates and names I only have a slight headache.

I couldn't concentrate and I couldn't enjoy the poetry because my eyes hurt from trying to follow the formatting. This doesn't go for just Paul Blackburn I had a hard time with each of the BLACK MOUNTAIN poets. Robert Creeley seems to be the only poet in the BLACK MOUNTAIN who isn't all over the pages. His formatting is easier on me and I like his use of enjambments he seems to know when to cut off to the next line...I don't know if I like his poetry per say but I do think he is an excellent enjambment-ator.

so yes...in conclusion BLACK MOUNTAIN hurt my eyes.