"It was a show of [Clyfford] Still's painting that led me to stay in San Francisco instead of going to Europe, and to search out the new painters where I found Jess. It was not to be until five years later that I ever saw a canvas of Still's as an instance of the beautiful (and these in painting are rare enuf), but what was clear then was that this was authentic, a command within the spiritual history of art that involved more than painting--as uncharming, as hideous in strength as revolt is; it had or I gave it authority. Not to be like it, but to take my place in a world where such painting must be a definition of the real." --Duncan to Levertov, 2-2-60


    "Touring the Polygamist Ranch"

Here · morning · rain
forever to leave the earth

Clear skies searched for rain
above the waterlogged earth

Jade Vacuity, rain
from ev'rywhere that is or isn't earth


"Even where his art is beautiful, Still's work is grandiose, megalomaniac: he is incapable of the intimate. And the force of his egotism makes it impossible for me to think of him as heroic. Heroism for me has something to do with the engagement with and for the Beautiful." --ibid


"Glancingly if fluvial cup protuberous conic plat."