Joanne Kyger

Joanne Kyger (born November 19, 1934) is an American poet. Her poetry is influenced by her practice of Zen Buddhism and her ties to the poets of Black Mountain, the San Francisco Renaissance, and the Beat generation.

Overview

Kyger studied at University of California, Santa Barbaracite web|url=http://www.bigbridge.org/Issue4/biokyger.htm|title=Big Bridge #4 Chapbook Poet: Joanne Kyger|accessdate=2008-07-23] but left before graduating. She moved to San Francisco in 1957 and became involved with the poetry scene around Jack Spicer and Robert Duncan.

In 1960 she joined Gary Snyder (whom she had met in San Francisco in 1958) in Japan. They were married on February 28, immediately after her arrival, which Ruth Fuller Sasaki insisted they do, if they were to live together and be associated with the First Zen Institute of America.Stirling 2006, pg. 110] She later travelled to India with Snyder, Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky. She returned to the United States in 1964Kyger 2000, pg. 280] and her first book, "The Tapestry and the Web" was published the next year.

Back in San Francisco, she practiced zazen under Shunryu Suzuki. In 1965, she married Jack Boyce. They separated in the early seventies.cite web|url=http://www.cuke.com/Cucumber%20Project/interviews/kyger.html|title=Crooked Cucumber-Joanne Kyger interview|accessdate=2008-06-01]

Kyger has published more than twenty books of poetry and prose, including "Going On: Selected Poems, 1958-1980" (1983) [a winner in the [http://www.nationalpoetryseries.org/ National Poetry Series] ] and "Just Space: poems, 1979-1989" (1991). She has lived in Bolinas since 1968, where she has edited the local newspaper and done some occasional teaching at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

In 2000, her 1981 collection of autobiographical writings was republished as "Strange Big Moon: Japan and India Journals, 1960-1964", which Anne Waldman has called "one of the finest books ever in the genre of 'journal writing'".

More recent poetry collections include "God Never Dies" (Blue Press), "The Distressed Look" (Coyote Books), "Again" (La Alameda Press), and "As Ever: Selected Poems" published by Penguin Books.

Bibliography

*"Strange Big Moon: The Japan and India Journals: 1960-1964" (2000) North Atlantic Books. ISBN 978-1556433375. Originally published in 1981 by Tombouctou Books as "The Japan and India Journals, 1960-1964".
*"About Now: Collected Poems" (2007) National Poetry Foundation. ISBN 978-0943373720

Notes

References

*Stirling, Isabel. "Zen Pioneer: The Life & Works of Ruth Fuller Sasaki" (2006) Shoemaker & Hoard. ISBN 978-1-59376-110-3

See also

*Bolinas, California

External links

*worldcat id|id=lccn-n82-147335
* [http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/kyger/ Joanne Kyger at the EPC]
* [http://jacketmagazine.com/07/spicer-russo.html "to be Jack Spicer in a dream": Joanne Kyger and the San Francisco Renaissance, 1957-65] essay by Linda Russo at "Jacket Magazine" website
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iugexLH2osY Joanne Kyger reads her poems at the University of California, Berkeley video]