Acknowledgments

I thank the many people who have helped me in this effort: the authors themselves and their wives or widows, especially those who helped me personally—George and Mary Oppen, Carl and Leah Rakosi, Carol Tinker, and Celia Zukofsky; my director, Albert Gelpi, and my readers, William Chace and Lucio Ruotolo; my fellow scholars and critics, including those cited in my notes and bibliography and especially Barry Ahearn, Layeh A. Bock, Don Byrd, Randolph Chilton, Cid Corman, Robert Duncan, Steven Fredman, David Gitin, Robert von Hallberg, Rachel Blau Du Plessis, Kenneth Rexroth, Martin J. Rosenblum, and Kathryn Shevelow; librarians and curators, including Bill Allan at Stanford, Donald C. Gallup at Yale, Ellen S. Dunlap at Austin, Michael Davidson at the Archive for New Poetry, and Elizabeth Stege Teleky at Chicago; publishers and editors—James Laughlin III of New Directions, John Martin of Black Sparrow, and Burton Hatlin and Carroll F. Terrell of Paideuma; professors from whom I have learned, including my director, my readers, and David Bromige, Donald Davie, Helen Dunn, Thomas Moser, Nancy Packer, Ron Rebholz, Gerald Rosen, Alan Sandy, and J. J. Wilson; my friends and relations who have supported me in many ways while this work was in progress, including, foremost, Fred and Mae Sharp, and Gil Helmick, Tim Jacobs, Katherine Kahrs, Richard Laubly, Mary Magagna, Mike and Sherri McKnight, Jeannine Ryan, Carrie Walker, and Bill Vartnaw; my typist, Emily Nadeau; and, for his challenge to maintain ethical relevance, Alan Acacia.