The Black Mountain School was a group of poets who met through Black Mountain College, a North Carolina liberal arts school focused on experimental teaching methods. Major figures from this school included Creeley, Hilda Morley, Charles Olson, Paul Blackburn, Ed Dorn, and others. While there was a great deal of variety among the work produced by these poets, some of the movement's central ideas were formally codified in Charles Olson's essay "Projective Verse" which posited that poetry should seek to break away from traditionally "closed" forms and pursue poetry centered on connecting perceptions. It also stated the importance of the line as the most essential structural element of a poem. These poets, through different means, pursued work that unified its content and structure through sensation and feeling. Their poems are both experimental and evocative.
These qualities are exemplified in the poem "That Bright Grey Eye," by Hilda Morley:
The grey sky, lighter & darker
greys,
lights between & delicate
lavenders also
blue-greys in smaller strokes,
& swashes
of mauve-grey on the Hudson—
openings
These lines evoke the color of the evening sky and connect individual images into a complete scene. Morley uses the various shades of light ("grey," "lavender," "blue-grey," "mauve-grey") to paint a picture of a sunset on the Hudson River. The breakup of the lines as well as the vividness of the color imagery renders this transitional moment very powerfully.
These qualities are also demonstrated in Charles Olson's "Variations Done for Gerald Van De Wiele"
dogwood flakes
what is green
the petals
from the apple
blow on the road
mourning doves
mark the sway
of the afternoon, bees
dig the plum blossoms
The Olson poem uses techniques similar to the ones in the Morley poem. It accumulates sensory detail in an effort to build out a scene. In this case it is a lazy afternoon in a rural setting. Each image ("Morning doves," "the petals," "bees dig[ging] the plum blossoms") immediately situates the reader in a clear and lively scene. The most essential parts of both of these poems are individual lines suffused with sensory information.
Creeley fits comfortably with these writers and their work. He too sought to break away from traditional forms while still writing poetry that was immediate and deeply felt. Like Morley and Olson, he prized moments of sensation and perception in his work, reaching for the kind of imagery that would give strong indicators of a scene. Their work provides a helpful prism through which to view Creeley's own subtle innovations of poetic form.
