Robert Duncan is one of the poets who helped to establish the San Francisco Bay area as one of the major centers for poetry in the United States, and in recent years he has become the presiding voice of that center. Together with Charles Olson and Robert Creeley, he is also known as one of the principal Black Mountain poets, having taught briefly at the experimental Black Mountain College in western North Carolina shortly before its closing, although his roots in poetry go much deeper and broader.

He was born in Oakland, California. His mother died shortly after giving birth, and his father, a day laborer, was unable to keep the child. He was put up for adoption and after six months was adopted by a couple who were "orthodox theosophists" and who chose the baby on the basis of his astrological configuration. He grew up as Robert...