Robert Duncan (poet)

Robert Edward Duncan ( born January 7, 1919 in Oakland, California, † February 3, 1988 in San Francisco, California ) was an American poet.

Duncan grew up in Oakland and Bakersfield in anthroposophic embossed adoptive parents. In 1936 he began studying at the University of California at Berkeley. From there he moved in 1938 to the Black Mountain College in North Carolina, where he met Robert Creeley and Charles Olson. After an altercation he left college again. When he was drafted for military service in 1941, he confessed his homosexuality and was released. After several same-sex relationships, he married Marjorie McKee 1943. The marriage ended in divorce after a few months. From 1948 to 1950 Duncan returned to Berkeley to study literature. From 1951 on he lived with the painter Jess Collins in San Francisco. There he was part of the group to Lawrence Ferlinghetti, a supporter of the Beat Generation. Duncan is one of the major representatives of the San Francisco Renaissance.

Works (selection)

• The First Decade: Selected Poems 1940-1950 (1968 )
• Derivations: Selected Poems 1950-1956 (1968 )
• Tribunal: Passages 31-25 (1970)
• Ground Work: Before the War ( 1984)