The Black Mountain Poets were a mid-20th-century group of writers linked to Black Mountain College in North Carolina. Associated figures include Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, Robert Duncan, and Denise Levertov. They emphasized open form, the speaking voice, and the poem as a process rather than a fixed, polished structure, often pushing against traditional meter and rhyme.
The movement strongly influenced later experimental poetry in the United States.
They were anti-academic in their approach and sought to challenge traditional poetic forms.
Example
The sea kept changing its mind
and the line changed with it,
word after word,
as if the poem were listening
before it spoke.