Michael Rumaker: Selected Letters
Michael Rumaker: Selected Letters
Editor: Megan Paslawski
67 pages, softcover, saddle-stitch binding
This selection of letters from Michael Rumaker to such friends as Don Allen, Joanne Kyger, and Robert Duncan provides a window into the remarkable life that he devoted to writing and human liberation, aspirations that his words prove to be symbiotic. These letters detail Rumaker’s education at Black Mountain College under Charles Olson, his struggle with the depressive and repressive forces of the 1950s, and a life-giving engagement with gay activism that continues to this day. Michael Rumaker’s letters add nuance to our understanding of marginalized history, depth to a contemporary understanding of social progress, and further examples of the prose that makes his books such as Gringos and Other Stories, The Butterfly, and A Day and A Night at the Baths so significant to stylists.
Author Biography:
Michael Rumaker was born in Philadelphia and educated at Black Mountain College and Columbia University. He taught writing at The New School and City College, CUNY. Pagan Days, a veiled account of his life, is one of his many books that provides a more interesting biography than any blurb could, while Gringos and Other Stories remains a classic of New American Prose. Black Mountain Days, To Kill a Cardinal, My First Satyrnalia, and A Day and A Night at the Baths, have all been reprinted by Spuyten Duyvil Press.
Selected Archives:
- Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT