Way More West: New and Selected Poems

Best known for his chatty, satirical mock-western long poem "Gunslinger," Dorn (1929–1999) came to poetic maturity alongside Creeley and Olson, with whom he studied at the now legendary experimental Black Mountain College, though his fast-paced, angry poetry sometimes suggests the beats. Included in this volume are Dorn's poetic travelogues about the U.S. and Britain; a poetic history of the Apache nation; epigrams and commentaries against war, capitalism and environmental degradation; and a memorable verse journal of his chemotherapy (Chemo Sabe , his last book). Dorn specialized in acrid denunciations of Euro-American hegemony, with particular attention to the areas west of the Rockies: "We do not even yet/ know what a crisis is." "Gunslinger"—here represented in a short selection—itself records a saloon conversation among the titular cowboy, the poet, the saloonkeeper Miss Lil and an improbably wise talking druggie horse. Celebrated during the 1970s, there is nothing else like it in poetry. If there is sympathy and caution in Dorn's work, he directs it only toward the peoples American governments have tried to destroy: Apaches "embody a state/ which our still encircled world/ looks toward from the past." The breadth and fire of his denunciations still read beautifully, and have a lot to teach us. (Apr.)