Paul Blackburn (1926–71) was born in Vermont and moved to Greenwich Village at the age of fourteen with his mother, poet Frances Frost. After getting out of the army, Blackburn corresponded with Ezra Pound and hitchhiked from the University of Wisconsin to visit him in Washington, D.C. at St. Elizabeths Hospital. Called the pre-spirit of the Poetry Project at St. Read More Mark’s Church, Blackburn gave the first reading there in 1966, and both his work and recordings of early downtown readings had widespread influence across a range of poetic practices. Poet-in-Residence at City College, CUNY, from 1966–67, he published thirteen books of poetry and five major translations in his lifetime, including the medieval epic Poem of the Cid, and work by Julio Cortázar that served as one of the opening salvos of the Latin American boom. Twelve other books came out posthumously, including a reprint of Proensa: An Anthology of Troubadour Poetry in 2016. British scholar Simon Smith is working on a collected poems and a new edition of The Journals.