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Black Mountain poets

Movement
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A mid-20th-century American avant-garde group emphasizing open form and process-based composition

Detailed Definition
The Black Mountain poets were an influential mid-20th-century American avant-garde group associated with Black Mountain College, including Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, and Denise Levertov; they championed “projective verse,” emphasizing open forms, breath-based lineation, and the poem as a field of energy, rejecting traditional metrics in favor of organic, process-driven composition rooted in perception and immediacy.
Example
Example in poetry:
Charles Olson’s “The Kingfishers,” exemplifying projective verse and open field composition; Robert Creeley’s short, breath-based poems like “I Know a Man”; Denise Levertov’s “The Jacob’s Ladder,” using organic form and personal voice; Robert Duncan’s “My Mother Would Be a Falconress,” blending myth and personal lyricism
Additional Notes
Black Mountain poets (e.g., Charles Olson, Robert Creeley) emphasized open form, projective verse, and breath-based lineation; influential in mid-20th-century American avant-garde poetry.
Also Known As
Black Mountain School Projective Verse poets Olson Circle Open-field poets Charles Olson group Projectivist poets
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