Thomas Parkinson

A Casebook on the Beat, edited by Thomas Parkinson (1920-1992). New York: Crowell, 1961. Courtesy Amazon.com.

Thomas Francis Parkinson (February 24, 1920 - January 15, 1992) was an American poet and academic.

Life

Overview

Parkinson, a professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley), was a poet in his own right; an expert on the poetry of W.B. Yeats; and an early academic writer on the Beat poets and novelists of San Francisco in the 1950s and 1960s. A deeply thoughtful man of great integrity, he was a quiet political activist for much of his life, and survived a murder attempt in 1961 by a deranged former student who sought to "get someone who was associated with Communism." Parkinson survived being shot in the face (and bore the scars of the assault for the rest of his life). He died of an apparent heart attack in 1992 after a long illness.

Youth and education

Growing up in San Francisco as the son of a master-plumber union leader who was blacklisted during the General Strike of the late 1930s, Parkinson developed a respect for labor and a sensitivity to social injustice.

He graduated from Lowell High School and also attended junior college, where he was inspired by gifted teachers.

When World War II began, Parkinson enlisted in the Army, but was eventually discharged because he was too tall. In the years that followed, Parkinson worked a motley series of jobs, as an insurance agent, a ship's outfitter, and a lumberjack. And he continued to read widely and deeply. He eventually returned to Berkeley, where he completed his Bachelor's degree in 3 years.

Career and activism

While he was developing an academic career at Berkeley in the 1950s, Parkinson became immersed in the continuing political battles of his times. A tireless supporter of students both inside and outside the classroom, Parkinson made a number of public statements about paltry funding for student scholarships, including those for women students.

An article he published in the campus newspaper, the Daily Californian, sparked the murder attempt by a former student who claimed to have been commanded by God. Parkinson was severely injured in the attack — several of his vertebrae were fused and his face permanently damaged — and the teaching assistant who was with him at the time was killed.

Parkinson continued to promote liberal causes, however, and served as campus ombudsman, chaired the Berkeley chapter of the American Association of University Professors, and testified at the obscenity trial on behalf of Allen Ginsberg's Howl.

He was instrumental in helping promote humanities study, teacher training, and extension courses for non-matriculated students during a period when the university was pressured to specialize its programs and become increasingly elite.

During this period, Parkinson's academic career began to flourish as he published 2 critical works: W.B. Yeats, Self-Critic (1961) and W.B. Yeats: The later poetry (1964), which established him as an authority on the Anglo-Irish poet.

He was the editor of A Casebook on the Beat (1961), the earliest academic analyses of poets Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jack Spicer, and Robert Duncan. He also edited the correspondence of poets Hart Crane and Yvor Winters.

Parkinson became part of the circle of writers, including Lawrence Ferlinghetti, that helped evolve the San Francisco literary culture of the 1960s, and served as a unique voice as both critic and fellow-poet. His last book,Poets, Poems, Movements (1987), is an award-winning collection of essays.

He died, aged 71, of an apparent heart attack.

Recognition

When Parkinson was an undergraduate, he won the Emily Chamberlain Cook Prize in Poetry — the 26th Award — in 1945, for his poem "Letter to a Young Lady" which was published as a staple back that year by The Circle.

On his retirement in 1991, Parkinson received the university's highest honor, the Berkeley Citation.

Publications

Poetry

• Men, Women, Vines. Berkeley, CA: Ark Press, 1959.
• Thanatos: Earth poems. Berkeley, CA: Oyez, 1965.
• Homage to Jack Spicer, and other poems: Poems, 1965-1969. Berkeley, CA: Ark Press, 1970.
• The Canters of Thomas Parkinson; chiefly concerning John Wayne and his horse and many incredibilities. Berkeley, CA: Thorp Springs Press, 1978.
• From the Grand Chartreuse: For Gary Snyder. Berkeley, CA: Oyez, 1981.
• The Man of Letters: New poems. Berkeley, CA: [198-?]
• Poems: New and selected. Orono, ME: National Poetry Foundation, 1988.

Play

• What the Blind Man Saw; or, Twenty-five years of the endless war. 1970; Berkeley, CA: Thorp Springs Press, 1974.

Non-fiction

• Yeats and Pound: The illusion of influence. Eugene, OR: University of Oregon, 1954.
• Robert Lowell: A collection of critical essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1968.
• W.B. Yeats, Self-Critic: A study of his early verse. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1961.
• W.B. Yeats: The later poetry. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1971.
• W.B. Yeats, Self-Critic: A study of his early verse / W.B. Yeats: The later poetry. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1971.
• Poets, Poems, Movements. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1987.

Edited

• A Casebook on the Beat. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1961, 1965, 1966, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971.
• Hart Crane and Yvor Winters: Their literary correspondence. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1978.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

Audio video

• Thomas Francis Parkinson reading his poems with comment at the University of California, October 1962 (tape). 1962.
• Thomas Francis Parkinson reading his poems with comment at station KPFK in Berkeley, Calif., Jan. 25, 1963 (tape). 1963.

See also

• List of U.S. poets
• List of literary critics

External links

Books

• Thomas Parkinson at Amazon.com

About

• "Thomas Parkinson, 71; Wrote of the Beat Era," New York Times