A Study Guide for Robert Duncan's "Poetry, A Natural Thing"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Robert Duncan's "Poetry, A Natural Thing", excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Poetry for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Poetry for Studentsfor all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Mar 22, 2018
• ISBN: 9781535845984

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Poetry, a Natural Thing

Robert Duncan

1960

Introduction

Duncan had a very long career, writing steadily from his debut collection in 1947 until his last, published shortly before his death in 1987. Poetry, a Natural Thing comes from the first of his three ground breaking collections published in the 1960s, The Opening of the Field (1960), Roots and Branches (1964), and Bending the Bow (1968). Duncan was known as a member of both the Black Mountain poetry movement and the San Francisco Renaissance, with the former having the most influence on his lifelong project of living his art. Duncan believed that poems are revelation and that it is the poet's lifework to learn to hear the voice of Poetry emanating from deep within. Poetry, a Natural Thing evokes the urge to do this by drawing an extended metaphor between the salmon's instinctive drive to return home to spawn, spending all its vitality in the effort, and the instinctive drive for poetry that the poet must learn to harness.

While Duncan's deep erudition, love of the occult and mysterious, and open field poetics can sometimes pose challenges to the reader unfamiliar with his work, Poetry, a Natural Thing is a fairly straightforward lyrical poem. It is not difficult to follow, nor is its meaning occluded by deep layers of allusion, and therefore it provides a natural introduction to Duncan's work. It can be found also in Duncan's The Collected Later Poems and Plays (2014).

Author Biography

Robert Duncan was born on January 7, 1919, in Oakland, California, as Edward Howard Duncan Jr. He was the son of Duncan Sr., a day laborer, and Marguerite Pearl Carpenter, who died giving birth to the baby. His father could not afford to keep him, so he was put up for adoption. Architect Edwin Joseph Symmes and his wife, Minnehaha Harris, both dedicated Theosophists, selected the baby based on several specific criteria, including his astrology and his race, and renamed him Robert Edward Symmes. The boy's childhood was one in which séances were common, his dreams were interpreted by his parents, and he was told he was a direct descendant of the lost tribes of Atlantis. Duncan incorporated his parents' Theosophist beliefs into his worldview, and throughout his life and poetic career, the occult was to remain a central influence.

Duncan began writing poetry seriously in high school, and in 1938, after two years