1/21/2012

#whitepoetproblems

[Robert Duncan's] biological mother died in childbirth. He was adopted into a family of Theosophists. His adoptive parents were part of a hermetic brotherhood in Oakland, California... [They] adopted Duncan based on his astrological chart, and they told him that they had adopted him because of his “bad karma”...

Duncan had a troubled relationship with [his mother]. There are a couple things here: he was homosexual... she didn’t seem to have trouble with that so much. And it may actually have been part of the prediction, based on his astrological chart, that he would be “deviant” in this way. The chart also, according to his parents, showed that he had had his last incarnation in Atlantis, and that he had been part of a generation that had destroyed their own world, and that he had been brought back for the end times, now, which would be some fiery ending, probably atomic... That was in his head, growing up. But I don’t think that bothered him as much as the fact that she wanted him to be an architect.

- Lisa Jarnot, Robert Duncan's biographer, in interview with Curtis Fox for Poetry Off the Shelf, proving that even the crazies wish their kids would stop writing poetry and get real jobs. You can listen to the whole thing here.

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