The Holy Grail
Jack Spicer
Praise for The Holy Grail
"The Holy Grail" was originally published 50 years ago by White Rabbit Press. It is composed of seven sections, each containing seven poems. Changing narrators, shifting time periods, the author's use of jokes and lapsus linguae and folk songs, all conspire to create what Spicer called "an uncomfortable music."
His friend Robin Blaser said it was more like a "cubist painting where you can't get through the fucking frame."
Sit down with the book and listen to the recording of Spicer himself reading it aloud on PennSound. Now, do that over and over until you feel a timeworm in your chest.
Jack Spicer (January 30, 1925 – August 17, 1965) was an American poet often identified with the San Francisco Renaissance. In 2009, My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer won the American Book Award for poetry.
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