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Daniel Zimmerman, Poet
Zimmerman lives at 485 Parsonage Road, Edison, NJ 08837. Phone: (732) 494-1676;
email: daniel7@idt.net. Born 9 February 1945, he grew up in Buffalo and
attended SUNY/Buffalo,
1962-70, completing a Ph.D in Blake & Milton in '83. During the '70s, he
toiled as a landscaper, frolicked as an artist-in-residence (with the
city of Buffalo), and served as the first CEO of Niagara-Erie Writers
before moving to Vermont, where he worked as a journalist. He has taught
at Middlesex County College in Edison, NJ, since 1979. In 1990, he
received a Mellon Fellowship at CUNY.
Zimmerman edited two magazines, The Western Gate and Brittannia, and
currently
edits College English Notes, the newsletter of the NJ College English
Association. His writing has appeared in Mother, Anonym, Exquisite Corpse, Move, Solstice, himma, intent., New York Quarterly, Io, On Turtle's Back, Assembling, House Organ, :that:, The Downtown Review, Institute of Further Studies Magazine, and NMFG.
Among contemporary poets important to Zimmerman are Ed Dorn, Robert Creeley and Ed Sanders. He cherishes the work of many poets of the past, including Shakespeare, Rumi, Donne, Basho, Blake, John Clarke, Li Po, Jack Spicer, Robert Duncan, Charles Olson, Dickinson, Pound, Williams, Yeats, Donne and Rilke.
He names John Clarke,
Joseph Wittreich, Stephen Cox, Vincent De Luca, Henry Corbin, Donald Ault and Susan Fox as critics who are important
to him.
Concerning his tastes in poetry, he says, "I look for poets who see everything at once (or in once), who demonstrate a level of acuity to which I can continue to aspire: explorers. I appreciate poetry that leaves something important (secret because unsayable) unsaid. Thus, I find little of interest in confessional poetry (which says too much, and too much of it unimportant) or in Langpo (which, despite its technical advances, says too little, but at great length, making its surface all, a secret of the unimportant). Neither usually reveals the vertical dimension I listen for, nor provides the instruments to navigate that realm."
He believes "Contemporary poetry seeks 'to witness and adjust... to drive the car,' as Williams said. The contemporary car, though, increasingly drives itself, and only expert mechanics dare venture beneath the hood. Poets have responded variously:
from public transportation to dirt bikes to "Beam me up,
Scotty." It works for me when it gives me back my legs, provides a map, or--occasionally--fits me with a pair of wings."
Publications: Blue Horitals (With John Clarke; Amman, Jordan: Oasii, 1997), Our English (Oasii Broadside #22, Ra'anana, Israel, 1995), 3 Poems (Oasii Broadside #1, Ra'anana, Israel, 1994), Indian Rope Trick (House Organ #9, Lakewood, OH, 1994), Tattoos for Proteus (:that: #18, Peacham, VT, 1994), At That (Buffalo, NY: Western Gate, 1978), See All The People (Illus. by Richard Sturm; introduction by Robert Creeley; Toronto: Open Studio/Scarborough College, 1976), Perspective (Canton, NY: Institute of Further Studies, 1974), Royal Jelly (Special issue of Mouth magazine, Buffalo, 1974), Deja Vu (Buffalo: The Broadway Press, 1967), and Mandala (Buffalo: The Broadway Press, 1964).
For two recent poems of Zimmerman's, "LIVE/IDEA/MEET/OARS" and "Whose Enkidu?" click here. Click here to read "Cut Loose in Our Remonstrance," a poem by John Clarke that Zimmerman esteems.
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