Robert Duncan was born in Oakland, California. He was adopted with the name Robert Symmes in 1920 and reverted to Duncan in 1941. He was educated at the University of California at Berkeley. He edited "The Experimental Review", "Phoenix", "The Berkeley Miscellany", all in Berkeley, between 1938 and 1949. He is known as a prolific poet, but also worked as a dramatist, teacher and editor. He helped establish the San Francisco Bay area as a major centre for poetry in the USA. He taught at Black Mountain College in 1956 and became known as one of the principle Black Mountain poets. After 1950, his work was closely associated with Charles Olsen, Robert Creeley, and Denise Levertov. He won many honors for his work including a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1963. He died in San Francisco.