Home › Glossary › Letter B

Black Mountain school

Movement
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

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 poetry school influenced by Charles Olson

Detailed Definition
Black Mountain school refers to an influential American avant-garde poetry movement centered at Black Mountain College (1933–1957), led by Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, and Denise Levertov, which championed “projective verse”—open form, breath-based lines, and composition by field; rejecting traditional metrics, the school emphasized process over product, interdisciplinary collaboration, and the poem as an energetic extension of the poet’s perception and body.
Example
Example in poetry:
Charles Olson’s “An African Elegy” with fragmented lines and imagery: “Death is the dog-headed man zebra striped...”; Robert Duncan’s projectivist open form with direct address; Ed Dorn’s “If It Should Ever Come” using colloquial diction and enjambment; emphasis on breath and spontaneity characteristic of Black Mountain school poetry.
Additional Notes
An influential group of experimental American poets (c. 1950s-1970s) centered around Black Mountain College; Emphasized the "Projective Verse" theories of Charles Olson, advocating for a poetry based on breath, open form, and the poet's immediate perception; Key poets: Olson, Robert Duncan, Robert Creeley; Related to open form.
Other Meanings of “Black Mountain school”
Also Known As
Black Mountain poets Olson circle Projective verse school Black Mountain Poets (US)
Skip to main content