Sacramento Poet Douglas Blazek gave a reading of his poetry and discussed his collages on Thursday, February 28, 2019 at the University Library Gallery. An exhibition of Blazek’s collages “Open The Mirror Like A Window” was on view in the Gallery from February 7 – March 30, 2019.
Blazek has had a pronounced impact on the American literary scene. He edited a subversive literary magazine (Ole) and created an alternative small press (Open Skull), through which he brought critical attention to many non-establishment poets, such as Charles Bukowski. During his sixty-year career, he has published more than fifteen hundred poems, which have appeared in over five hundred journals and a dozen books. He has been a central figure in the transformative effort to move control over poetry publishing away from academic and commercial presses to the artists themselves. His work has been described as a course correction for the culture dedicated to “making poetry dangerous.”
Concurrent with his poetic output, he also has been producing complex and mysterious collages that are just as dangerous as his literary works. Until now he has chosen to withhold these collages from public viewing. This exhibition revealed them to the public for the first time.