A Space for the Generation of Ghosts
摘要
“A Space for the Generation of Ghosts” introduces a framework for engaging with A Hauntological Investigation of the Works of Thomas Meyer. By way of a brief biography, the poet Thomas Meyer’s practice is discussed in the context of his situation as a young precocious poet at Bard College in the late 1960s to his longtime relationship with Jonathan Williams, and consequently his association with the Jargon Society, of which he served as assistant director for some forty years. Evidence for a hauntological approach to Meyer’s writing is presented in three strains: his correspondence with the ghost of Jack Spicer; the consequence of the rejection and neglect of his work by certain mentors (i.e., Basil Bunting and Guy Davenport); and, via his translation practice, an adaptation of Ezra Pound’s personae, and a communion with (and possible possession by) the specters of poets, such as Sappho, Strato, and Goethe. A webbing of hauntology, queer poetics, and bibliography is proposed.