Duncan, Robert

Related Category: American Literature: Biographies

1919–88, American poet, b. Oakland, Calif. He was a leading poet of the San Francisco renaissance during the late 1940s. His lyric style contains private allusions, gaps in syntax, and individualistic spellings. Among his themes are the search for love and the decline of faith in the supernatural. His volumes of poetry include The Opening of the Field (1960), Bending the Bow (1968), Derivations (1970), Groundwork I: Before the War (1984), and Groundwork II: In the Dark (1987).

See study ed. by R. Bertholf and I. Reid (1979).