The Crystal Text

This is Clark Coolidge's most famous book, the one everyone references, long out of print after a 2nd successful publication with Sun & Moon Press in 1995. (The book was originally published by The Figures Press in 1986)This new edition features new material: a preface by poet and scholar Peter Gizzi, and an interview in the afterword where Coolidge addresses the genesis of the poem.Clark Coolidge is associated with the New York School and writers
Ted Berrigan, Ron Padgett, Anne Waldman, Bernadette Mayer, and Larry
Fagin.He is also linked with the Language Poets including Lyn Hejinian, Ron Silliman, and Michael Palmer.In Gizzi's preface, he mentions the many authors who consider Coolidge to be their favorite poet. This includes: James Schuyler, Robert Creeley, Alice Notley, John Ashbery, Charles Bernstein, Susan Howe, Bill Corbett, Geoffrey Young, Barbara Guest, Peter Straub, Michael Palmer, Rosmarie Waldrop, Michael Ondaatje, Robin Blaser, David Shapiro, John Yau, Lyn Hejinian, Tom Raworth, Paul Auster, Bernadette Mayer, & Fanny HoweThe Crystal Text is comparable to Keats's "Ode to a Grecian Urn," a meditation on an object.Bay-area events are planned.