"Robin Blaser was a key figure in the San Francisco Renaissance in the late 50s. He came to prominence, along with John Ashbery, Robert Duncan, Robert Creeley, and Jack Spicer, in Donald Allen's ground-breaking anthology The New American Poetry 1945-1960. In 1966, he took up a teaching post at the newly opened Simon Fraser University and is now Professor Emeritus. He became a Canadian citizen over 30 years ago. Poet, scholar and teacher, Blaser has been a mentor to writers, poets and intellectuals worldwide. He is the author of many books of poetry, mainly collected in The Holy Forest. A celebration of Blaser's work, The Recovery of the Public World: Essays on Poetics in Honour of Robin Blaser edited by Charles Watts and Edward Byrne, was published in 1998, following the international conference of the same name held in Vancouver. An opera lover, Blaser wrote the remarkable and acclaimed libretto for The Last Supper, created with Sir Harrison Birtwhistle, which premiered in Berlin (2001) and at Glyndebourne (2002). Most recently, Even on Sunday: Essays, Readings, and Archival Materials on the Poetry and Poetics of Robin Blaser, With New Work, edited by Miriam Nichols, was published by the National Poetry Foundation (2002)."