Robert Bertholf edited a collection of thirty-five letters between Duncan and the poet H. D. in 1991, titled A Great Admiration: H. D. / Robert Duncan Correspondence 1950-1961. Duncan and H. D. admired each other's poetry intensely.

Ekbert Faas' biography of Duncan, Young Robert Duncan: Portrait of the Poet As Homosexual in Society, provides a detailed biography of the poet through 1950.

Black Sparrow Press published Robert J. Bertholf's Robert Duncan: A Descriptive Bibliography in 1986. The book is difficult to obtain but contains an exhaustive and useful collection of secondary sources on Duncan.

Critics generally agree that Duncan's 1960 collection The Opening of the Field begins the poet's mature phase of work. This collection contains what is perhaps Duncan's best-known poem, "Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow."

Ian Reid and Robert Bertholf edited a collection of essays and tributes to Duncan...