James Koller was born in Oak Park, Illinois. He spent his early life in northern Illinois, and the 1960s on the Pacific Coast. In the early-1970s he moved to Maine, where he lived until his death while traveling across the US. Koller is the author of more than thirty books of poetry. He has also published three novels and numerous essays. His writing has been translated into Italian, French, Spanish, German and Swedish. He began performing his work in the US in 1959, and starting in the late-1970s appeared widely in western Europe, often accompanied by others, notably the late Swiss poet and artist Franco Beltrametti, the German poet Stefan Hyner and the folk musician Governor Clay. He was publisher of and since 1964. Many of his Beat, Black Mountain and San Francisco contemporaries have appeared in these publications. Koller was also active in the bio-regional and ecological movements.
Life and career
The son of an engraver, Koller began his involvement in the arts in the 1950s with vocational training in photography. In 1964, while living in Washington state, he became poetry editor of the Northwest Review at Philip Whalen's suggestion, only to see the magazine suspended after publishing an issue featuring Fidel Castro and Antonin Artaud. Soon after, with fellow editors Ed Van Aelstyn and Will Wroth, he founded . Koller's first book, Two Hands, was published in 1965 in Seattle, by James B. Smith. He moved to northern California in that year. His poetry appeared in reviews, and additional books followed: from Toad Press, Four Seasons, and Black Sparrow. Koller remained in the Bay Area into the 1970s, and at times joined the Diggers in putting out their Haight-Ashbury free broadsides. After his time in California, Koller lived for a while in Santa Fe, New Mexico, but mostly stayed on the move. In 1976 Koller was invited to England to read his work at the Cambridge Poetry Festival alongside Robert Creeley, Robert Duncan, Seamus Heaney, Jean Daive and Jacques Roubaud. Afterward, he embarked on the first of many European tours, accompanied by the late Franco Beltrametti and Harry Hoogstraten. He and Beltrametti made their first poetry tour in the US in 1977. From then on he criss-crossed both Europe and America, giving readings. From 1987 to 1989, he performed with Beltrametti from Bologna to Stockholm. Since the 1989 Chicago performance of The Bone Show with composer Peter Garland, Koller has regularly appeared and been recorded in the US and Europe with American musician/songwriter Governor Clay. In 2003 he toured the US with German poet Stefan Hyner. In 2005 he performed The Bone Show with Silvana Mariniello in Rome. While editor of Coyote's Journal and Coyote Books since 1964, Koller also edited the book review Otherwise from 1994 to 1997. He taught a course on the Icelandic sagas with Stefan Hyner and Reidar Ekner in Bø i Telemark, Norway, 2001. He was also active as an artist and photographer.
