Fielding Dawson

Who was Fielding Dawson?

Fielding Dawson was a beat-era author of short stories and novels, and a student at Black Mountain College. He was also a painter and collagist whose works were seen in several books of poetry and many literary magazines.

Born in New York City, Dawson was known for his stream-of-consciousness style before the term was coined. Much of his work was lax in punctuation to emphasize the immediacy of thought. Additionally, dialogue would often be used to break this up. Though conversational, much of his dialogue could often halt the metre while still staying on track. His lack of deference toward tradition in writing, other than that of the necessity to evoke humanity, often painfully raw, is what puts him in the category of many of his better-known contemporaries, such as Jack Kerouac or Allen Ginsberg.

Dawson was still writing up until his unexpected death in January 2002. He had become a teacher, first in prisons like Sing Sing, at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, where he taught regularly, and continuing on to work with at-risk students at Upward Bound High School in Hartwick, New York.

He was recently called "The Best St. Louis Writer You've Never Read" by David Clewell, a professor of history at Webster University.