Alan Davies (poet)

Alan Davies (born August 26, 1951), is a contemporary American poet, critic, and editor who has been writing and publishing since the 1970s. Today, he is most often associated with the Language poets.

Life and work

Alan Davies was born in Lacombe, a town in central Alberta, Canada. By the mid-1970s, he was editing a poetry journal, Occulist Witnesses, in the Boston area where he had stayed for a few years after attending Robert Creeley’s poetry class at Harvard Summer School in 1972. By this time he had hand-published John Wieners’ treatise on and for young poets, "The Lanterns along the Wall," which Wieners had written especially for Creeley's class.^[1] and began more actively publishing his own poetry. Soon, Davies was forming relations with an experimental group of writers whose practice became determining features of what grew into the Language School. This 'school' was not a group precisely, but a tendency in the work of many of its so-called practitioners.

Davies edited A Hundred Posters, one of the important "little" magazines of the "Language" movement. Subsequently, Davies was included in the crucial anthology devoted to "language-centred" writing: In the American Tree, edited by Ron Silliman (National Poetry Foundation, 1986; 2002).

Alan Davies, who is a Buddhist (as pointed out by Juliana Spahr),^[2] is currently living and working in New York City.

Davies was the 2011 writer in residence at the University of Windsor.^[3]

Selected publications

• split thighs. (Dorchester, MA: Other Publications, 1976): poetry
• Pursue Veritable Simples, (Annex Press 1983): prose-poetry-criticism
• A AN AV ES. (Needham, MA: Potes & Poets Press, 1981): poetry
• Mnemonotechnics. (Hartford, CT: Potes & Poets Press, 1982): poetry
• ACTIVE 24 HOURS. (New York: Roof Books/Segue Foundation, 1982) ISBN 978-0-937804-11-7: poetry
• Signage. (New York: Roof Books, 1987) ISBN 978-0-937804-24-7: collection of writings on and about poetry and poets
• NAME. (Berkeley, CA : This Press, 1986): poetry
• Candor. (Oakland, CA : O Books, 1990) ISBN 978-1-882022-08-3: interweaves essays, reviews and poetry
• RAVE. (New York: Roof Books/Segue Foundation, 1994) ISBN 978-0-937804-55-1: poetry
• "untitled", Alan Davies, M.M. Winterford. (Gran Canaria : Zasterle Press, 1994) ISBN 978-84-87467-20-2: Untitled collaboration with the photographer M.M. Winterford
• Sei Shonagon (Hole, 1995) chapbook of poetry
• Don't Know Alan: Notes on AD, with Miles Champion. (Philadelphia: Slought Books, 2002): essay in e-book format, link here Slought Foundation^[4]
• Book 5 (Cambridge, MA: Katalanché Press, 2006) chapbook of poetry
• RAW WAR (Annandale on Hudson, NY: Subpress, 2012) ISBN 978-1-9300686-1-2: poetry
• ODES & fragments (New York City: Ellipsis Press, 2013) ISBN 978-0-9637536-8-7: poetry

Notes

1. http://jacketmagazine.com/21/kimb-rev1.html John and the Four Dunn(e)s
2. "Poetry in a Time of Crisis" links to an article by Spahr which first appeared in Poetry Project Newsletter 189 (2002), 6-8. It was originally written for the "Poetry in a Time of Crisis" panel at the 2001 MLA in December of that year. Much of the talk centers around a reading Alan Davies gave in early October 2001 (shortly after the events of 9/11) at a small café in Brooklyn, New York
3. "Writer in Residence" University of Windsor website.
4. this e-book features a point-by-point response by Alan Davies to an open letter sent to him by Miles Champion and the complete text in pdf is offered here. This link also includes a link to bibliography or "Alan Davies Writing Resume"

External links

• "Extensions : Louis Cabri on Hole Magazine" Cabri's on-line essay becomes both a response to, and an engagement with, the work & poetics of Alan Davies
• What Goes Around Davies' essay/review & reflections on Brenda Iijima’s book Around Sea
• Alan Davies Author Page at EPC
• 7 Poems poems by Davies appearing in the on-line zine: oneedit, issue no. 10 (2008)
• To Call Them by Their Dead Name Davies reflects upon the life and work of Emanuel Carnevali
• Interview with Alan Davies first appeared on-line, September 25, 2007, conducted by Tom Beckett at E-X-C-H-A-N-G-E-V-A-L-U-E-S,a blog devoted to interviews with contemporary poets
• The Dea(r)th of Poetry essay/manifesto/critique published online in February 2010