Brewster Ghiselin (June 13, 1903 – June 11, 2002) was an American

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

and academic. Ghiselin was born in

Webster Groves, Missouri Webster Groves is an inner-ring Greater St. Louis, suburb of St. Louis in St. Louis County, Missouri, United States. The population was 24,010 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The city is home to the main campus of Webster Universit ...

, a suburb of

St. Louis St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a populatio ...

. The family home is at 29 Jefferson Road, now designated as a historic landmark. At the age of sixteen, he moved to

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, where he lived until 1934. He lived just north of

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

, graduating from

Tamalpais High School Tamalpais High School (often abbreviated as Tam) is a public secondary school located in Mill Valley, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is named after nearby Mount Tamalpais, which rises almost above Mill Valley. Tamalpais High Scho ...

in 1922. After high school, He enrolled at

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

. While there, he would commute two hours by train and ferry. Ghiselin said about commuting "I learned the look and feel of dawn and night on the Bay water." Ghiselin thought he wanted to be a painter, but was unhappy with his art teachers, dropping out the middle of his freshman year. He went to work for the '' San Anselmo Herald'' and the ''

San Francisco Bulletin The ''San Francisco Evening Bulletin'' was a newspaper in San Francisco, founded as the ''Daily Evening Bulletin'' in 1855 by James King of William. King used the newspaper to crusade against political corruption, and built it into having the hig ...

''. Looking for something more than the "stream of daily news", he enrolled at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

, again taking up Art. He said, ... "Art

hich Ij () is a village in Golabar Rural District of the Central District in Ijrud County, Zanjan province, Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq ...

taught me a lot about writing." Achieving an M.A. in English, he went on to

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

, for further study. While at Oxford, he sought out

D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, literary critic, travel writer, essayist, and painter. His modernist works reflect on modernity, social alienation ...

, finding him at the hotel Beau Rivage, in

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. After his meeting with Lawrence, he wrote a great deal of poetry that remained unpublished for six or seven years. Then in 1929 he became a member of the English faculty at the

University of Utah The University of Utah (the U, U of U, or simply Utah) is a public university, public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. It was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret (Book of Mormon), Deseret by the General A ...

, where he taught

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

. Finding the intellectual climate in Utah rather "chilling", he secured a job at Berkeley, where he and his wife Olive lived. In 1933 during the depression, he was out of a job. His mother had died in Laguna Beach, facilitating a move to her home. Together with scholar, Alfred Young Fisher, husband of M. F. K. Fisher, they organized the "Emergency Education Program" earning $27.00 a month teaching night classes at the local High School. He was lured back to the University of Utah where he began teaching a course, in 1941, called "The Creative Process". This was the beginning of the making of the Utah Writer's Conference. He was responsible for creating the Utah Writer's Conference in 1947, where he remained its director until 1966. He published ''Against the Circle'' in 1946. The poem "Rattlesnake" from this book of poems is mentioned in

Richard Hugo Richard Hugo (December 21, 1923 – October 22, 1982), born Richard Franklin Hogan, was an American poet. Although some critics regard Hugo as primarily a regionalist, his work resonates broadly across place and time. A portion of Hugo's work ref ...

's ''Triggering Town'', a book of lectures and essays on the writing of poetry. In 1970, he published the book ''Country of the Minotaur'', a compilation of many of his poems. In 1952, Ghiselin edited ''The Creative Process'', a

symposium In Ancient Greece, the symposium (, ''sympósion'', from συμπίνειν, ''sympínein'', 'to drink together') was the part of a banquet that took place after the meal, when drinking for pleasure was accompanied by music, dancing, recitals, o ...

of the writings of some thirty-eight men and women, including

Katherine Anne Porter Katherine Anne Porter (May 15, 1890 – September 18, 1980) was an American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, poet, and political activist. Her 1962 novel '' Ship of Fools'' was the best-selling novel in the United States that y ...

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...

Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2,100 artworks ...

, etc., on the

creative process Creativity is the ability to form novel and valuable ideas or works using one's imagination. Products of creativity may be intangible (e.g. an idea, scientific theory, literary work, musical composition, or joke), or a physical object (e.g. an ...

.Brewster Ghiselin ''Country of the Minotaur'', University of Utah Press, 1970 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 75-116761

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ghiselin, Brewster 20th-century American poets Poets from Utah University of Utah faculty Tamalpais High School alumni 1903 births 2002 deaths