READERS of this blog know that we've got a special place in our collective hearts for Robinson Jeffers, the great California poet of the '30s and '40s who settles in the rugged, unpopulated coastline north of Big Sur. (He was voted Best California Poet right here on The Misread City.)On Thursday, a festival devoted to Jeffers' life and work will take place at USC, one of his two alma maters (he … [Read more...]
Elizabeth Taylor in Big Sur
IT'S hardly a great movie, and it seems quite square and timid in its embrace of what we now know as "the '60s" -- art, bohemia, individualism. But I'll never forget Elizabeth Taylor's role in The Sandpiper and those great shots of the Big Sur Coast -- perhaps this blog's favorite West Coast locale.Liz plays a free-spirited singled mother, with raffish friends, and nearly bursts out every … [Read more...]
California Poetry and Robinson Jeffers
WHEN I put together a blog poll on Best California Poet, I was certain Charles Bukowski was going to barge in, whiskey bottle in hand, and run away with it.So I’m pleased to report that a far more significant poet ended up winning – and by a landslide. Take a bow, Robinson Jeffers!! He not only presided over the best turned-out vote in the history of The Misread City, he won by nearly as large a … [Read more...]
Robinson Jeffers and Big Sur
"NO major American poet has been treated worse by posterity than Robinson Jeffers," poet/critic dana gioia wrote in 1987, lamenting the lack of scholarly attention, an up-to-date selected poems, or a full-dress biography of this california writer who was once read voraciously and still inspires environmentalists. a few things have changed since then, but the great poet of california's central … [Read more...]