For over 40 years Warren Tallman, reader, critic, mentor, friend, confidant, host and impresario to writers all across North America has remained “in the midst” of the poetic discourse that time and again restores the body of his great goddess, Mother Tongue. He has been almost single handedly responsible for introducing the work of Canadian poets and writers to an international audience which now recognizes this work as some of the best and most important in the English language.
In this companion volume to the 1976 special issue of Open Letter, “God awful Streets of Man,” Warren Tallman introduces the reader to a world of literary companionship that has shaped the language and thought of late twentieth century North America.

Warren Tallman
Born in Seattle, Washington in 1921, Warren Tallman passed away in July, 1994.

He taught creative writing and modern American poetry at the University of British Columbia and York University in Toronto. In addition to In the Midst (1992), he is the author of numerous essays and articles, the essay collection Godawful Streets of Man (Coach House Press), as well as co-editor with Donald Allen, of New Amerian Poetics (Grove).

Friend to Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Robert Creeley, Allen Ginsberg and Jack Spicer, Tallman continued to be influential in the Vancouver writing scene until his death in July 1994.

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