Kyger, Joanne

Joanne Kyger is a West Coast poet who emerged as the Beat movement was beginning to wane in the 1960s. Kyger attended the University of California at Santa Barbara from 1952 to 1956, where she took classes with Hugh Kenner and Paul Wienphal both of whom were important to the development of her poetry. In 1957 she met John Wieners at The Place, a poetry bar, and through him met Robert Duncan and Jack Spicer; it was also during this time that she first met Gary Snyder. Later Kyger moved to the East West House, where such writers as Philip Whalen, Lew Welch, and Jack Kerouac were occasional residents. In 1960 she moved to Japan, where she and Snyder were married. Her life with Snyder in Kyoto and later India is the subject of "The Japan and India Journals, 1960-1964" (1981). In 1965 Donald Allen published her first book, "The Tapestry and the Web." In 1966 Kyger married the painter Jack Boyce. They returned to the San Francisco area in 1967 where they spent the next year. In 1968 the two travelled to Bodega Bay, then to Bolinas in 1969, where Kyger has continued to live. In the 1970s Bolinas was known for being a center for poets, as well as a home for Philip Whalen, Robert Creeley, Donald Allen, Tom Clark, and others.

From the description of Joanne Kyger papers, 1950-2009. (University of California, San Diego). WorldCat record id: 649467824

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