Robert Bly in This World

(Hardback)

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In 1958, a powerful new voice in American poetry emerged from the windswept prairie farmland of western Minnesota. Beginning with publication of The Fifties, a magazine of poetry, translation and general opinion, Robert Blys transformative poetry, translations, essays, and poetry readings rolled across the country like an invigorating prairie storm.

In his eighty-third year, to celebrate acquisition of his archives, the Elmer L. Andersen Library at the University of Minnesota sponsored a major conference, Robert Bly in This World. This is the record of that historic event. Scholars and authors from America and England presented papers on Blys poetry, translations, criticism, mythopoetic storytelling, and other major achievements, including his annual Great Mother and Minnesota Mens conferences. A trip to Madison, Minnesota, where Blys writing studio has been restored and preserved on the Lac Qui Parle County fairgrounds, is also chronicled here, plus intimate appreciations by Blys friends and admirers Coleman Barks, Donald Hall, Jane Hirshfield, Lewis Hyde, and others. A vintage documentary on Bly, A Man Writes to a Part of Himself, screened at the conference, is included as a DVD in a supplement to the book.

In Robert Blys long career as a poet and translator, he has authored more than forty volumes. His pioneering prose explorations of ancient stories include the international bestseller Iron John. His latest collection of poems, Talking into the Ear of a Donkey, was released in 2011.

Reviews

"I had never even heard Rumis name before attending Robert Blys Great Mother Conference in 1976. . . . As he handed me my copy, he said, These poems need to be released from their cages."Coleman Barks
"Robert Blys antiwar poetry . . . engages in mental combat so as to depress the corporeal. I deeply believe that there are men and women my age who are alive today because we had people like Robert doing that work in the sixties."Lewis Hyde
"We do what we must to keep the earth alive and our own species awake to its own full nature, for our own rescue and joy, and for the rescue and joy of those who will follow. This is the vow Robert Bly has always embodied, living as he has in sentinel alertness."Jane Hirshfield

Author Bio

Thomas R. Smith is the author of five books of poems, most recently The Foot of the Rainbow (2010). He edited the festschrift Walking Swiftly: Writing and Images on the Occasion of Robert Blys 65th Birthday (1992). He teaches at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis.

James P. Lenfestey, a former editorial writer for the MinneapolisSt. Paul Star Tribune, is the author of a collection of personal essays and four collections of poems. He convened the conference Robert Bly in This World.