THE OBJECTIVISTS

The objectivists were an avant-garde movement that started

in the Great Depression in New York when the stock market

collapsed and jobs were as rare as water in the desert. The

founder was Louis Zukofsky who started writing down poems

from what he felt and observed in the poverty-stricken slums

of the city. Other surrealist poets joined in to mark their

rebellion against apartheid even within the different

segments of the American society. The most important

aspect of these poets was their ability to write down

their direct objective perceptions through their direct

experience of the events which today gave rise to the

school of phenomenology in the arts. W.C. Williams,

Ezra Pound, E.E. Cummings later joined in along with

Robert Creeley whose projective verse initiated

The Black Mountain movement. The latter poets

wrote about their emotions mixed with their

direct perceptions and are an invaluable part

of emotional input to poetry. E.B.