Presences; A Text for Marisol A Critical Edition

xxvi, 166, [4] pages. Illustrations (some in color). Appendix. Decorative front cover. Publisher's press release laid in. No dust jacket present. This is one of the Recencies Series: Research and Recovery in Twentieth-Century American Poetics. Introduction Robert Creeley, Marisol, and the Book as Communication Network by Stephen Fredman. Robert White Creeley (May 21, 1926 March 30, 2005) was an American poet and author of more than sixty books. In 1960, Creeley earned an MA from the University of New Mexico. He began his academic career by teaching at the prestigious Albuquerque Academy starting in 1958 until about 1960 or 1961. In 1957, he met Bobbie Louise Hawkins; they lived together in a common law marriage until 1975 and had two children, Sarah and Katherine. He dedicated his book For Love to Bobbie. He is usually associated with the Black Mountain poets, though his verse aesthetic diverged from that school. He was close with Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Allen Ginsberg, John Wieners and Ed Dorn. He served as the Samuel P. Capen Professor of Poetry and the Humanities at State University of New York at Buffalo. In 1991, he joined colleagues Susan Howe, Charles Bernstein, Raymond Federman, Robert Bertholf, and Dennis Tedlock in founding the Poetics Program at Buffalo. Creeley first received fame in 1962 from his poetry collection For Love. He would win the Bollingen Prize, among others, and to hold the position of New York State Poet laureate from 1989 until 1991. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003. First published in 1976, this beautiful, interactive collaboration is a unique work of book art in which Marisol's monumental pop-art sculptures face the blocks of Creeley's prose poems. The new introduction by Creeley scholar Stephen Fredman describes how the poet's autobiographical prose poetry arose in conversation with images of Marisol's equally autobiographical sculptures. In addition to the introduction, this edition features an appendix of newly discovered material, much of it found in Creeley's own copy of the original edition of Presences. These include postcards and letters from Marisol, designer William Katz (who brought the poet and artist together), Mexican poet Octavio Paz, and several university professors. The material in the appendix allows the editor to reveal the genesis of Presences as a collaborative work of art involving three creators: artist, designer, and poet. Marisol Escobar (May 22, 1930 April 30, 2016), otherwise known simply as Marisol, was a Venezuelan-American sculptor born in Paris, who lived and worked in New York City. She became world-famous in the mid-1960s, but lapsed into relative obscurity within a decade. She continued to create her artworks and returned to the limelight in the early 21st century, capped by a 2014 major retrospective show organized by the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. The largest retrospective of Marisol's artwork, Marisol: A Retrospective has been organized by the Buffalo AKG Art Museum and curated by Cathleen Chaffee for these museums: the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (October 7, 2023 January 21, 2024), the Toledo Museum of Art (MarchJune 2024), the Buffalo AKG Art Museum (July 12, 2024 - January 6, 2025), and the Dallas Museum of Art (February 23July 6, 2025). Although it is supplemented by loans from international museums and private collections, the exhibition draws largely on artwork and archival material Marisol left to the Buffalo AKG Art Museum as a bequest upon her death. She became a friend of Andy Warhol in the early 1960s; she made a sculptural portrait of him, and he invited her to appear in several of his early films, including The Kiss (1963) and 13 Most Beautiful Girls (1964). Marisol received awards including the 1997 Premio Gabriela Mistral from the Organization of American States for her contribution to Inter-American culture. She was elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters in.…