Black Mountain College Poets

The Black Mountain poets, while not a self-identified group, were a collection of interconnected writers associated with Black Mountain College, an experimental arts-focused institution in North Carolina that operated from 1933 to 1957. Some poets taught at the college, others studied or visited there, and some were connected through publications like the Black Mountain Review.

These poets shared common approaches to poetry and poetics, influenced by Charles Olson’s “Projective Verse” manifesto. Key principles included using breath as a compositional unit, utilizing the entire page for composition, and moving away from personal ego in writing. The group emphasized community and the exchange of ideas.

BMC Poets

The Black Mountain poets’ impact on contemporary poetry includes their focus on poetics, innovative techniques, and the concept of poetry as a convergence of various elements. Many of these poets had lengthy careers, with their work from the 1950s and early 1960s being particularly significant. The movement is generally considered to have ended with Olson’s death in 1970.

Black Mountain College’s experiment in communal living and art-making remains a notable historical episode, but the lasting influence of the Black Mountain poets lies in their approach to poetry and poetics, which continues to engage poets today.

“If the term “Black Mountain” stands for anything, it is a relentless searching—constant experimentation with form and process to find what is at the root. As Olson writes in “Maximus, to Himself”: “I have had to learn the simplest thing / last.” In different ways, the work of the Black Mountain poets seeks modern means for getting back to fundamentals. The power of their poems exists in a ceaseless inward searching and outward projection of simple human truths through the activity of poetry—poems as the measure of a life.” Excerpted from The Paris Review – Redifining the Black Mountain Poets

Black Mountain College Museum Audio Recording
Audio Recordings by Phillip Barron, MFA student at San Francisco State University