Dark God of Eros: A William Everson Reader

by William Everson, Albert Gelpi (Editor, Introduction)

A comprehensive collection of a twentieth-century American literary master William Everson (1912-1994), aka Brother Antoninus, was a poet, monk, letterpress printer, and a quintessential Californian. Originally from the San Joaquin Valley, Everson was part of the Beat poet movement in San Francisco during the 1950s; among his peers were Robert Duncan, Kenneth Rexroth, Robert Creeley, and Denise Levertov. Everson wrote about nature, religion, spiritual exploration, eroticism, sex, and poetry. He gained great notoriety for his public poetry readings, where he projected great presence and veracity. Charismatic, Everson was a great inspiration to others, especially to those who appreciated the integration of poetry and printing. During the course of his life, his beliefs took many forms. He was an agnostic, a pantheist, a conscientious objector, an anarchist-pacifist Catholic Worker, a Dominican friar, and a moral force of the coastal mountains north of Santa Cruz, California.

Dark God of Eros: A William Everson Reader collects Everson's most significant poems from the mid-1930s through the 1990s--including poems from The Crooked Lines of God, The Residual Years, The Veritable Years, and The Integral Years. Also included are autobiographical writings (including letters to Lawrence Clark Powell and text from Prodigious Thrust), a section on Everson and Robinson Jeffers, his essays on poetry and poetics, portfolio items from his handpress, interviews, letters, and photographs. This carefully chosen selection highlighting the range of Everson's work will help readers better understand the life and many transformations of one of California's most fascinating and elusive bards.