One-Man Boat: The George Hitchcock Reader [Paperback] Hitchcock, George; McDowell, Robert and Bednarik, Joseph

Poetry, fiction, and drama by George Hitchcock, a -major American writer/editor of the 20th century.

Foreword by Philip Levine.

Introduction by Robert McDowell.

In 1960 George Hitchcock founded the San Francisco Review. In 1964, he launched Kayak magazine and press. Both established the work and careers of Robert Bly, Raymond Carver, Charles Simic, James Tate, Kathleen Fraser, Anne Sexton, John Haines, W. S. Merwin, Carolyn Kizer, and many others. Hitchcock also authored several books of distinctive, Surrealist poetry, widely produced plays, and fiction. This book includes work from all three genres, and a section on Kayak.

George Hitchcock, at 86, divides his time between Harrisburg, Oregon, and La Paz, Mexico.

From 1964 to 1984, Hitchcock edited kayak, publishing virtually every American poet worth reading at the time, regardless of his or her literary manner. He prefers surrealism for his own poetry, and this book's first section contains 96 pages of American surrealist verse as good as it gets, full of the conviction that everything is alive and meaningfully interactive. Humor sparks this poetry, but not at the expense of serious regard for human relations, including politics. Hitchcock's poems are vivid, vital, and engaging even when they elude precise understanding--like Wallace Stevens', only more common in touch. The two stories and two plays in the book are also funny and smart; indeed, that the plays aren't regularly staged is inexplicable, even if they plainly show kinship to the comedies of Giraudoux and Anouilh, in particular. Interviews with Hitchcock (including his 1957 colloquy with the House Un-American Activities Committee), his assessment of kayak, and some of the magazine's illustrated rejection slips and memorable replies to them fill out a book for every American lit collection. Ray Olson
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