Olson and Pound

by Charles Olson, Catherine Seelye (Editor)

Book by Olson, Charles

Genres: Poetry, History

143 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

Charles Olson was a second generation American modernist poet who was a link between earlier figures such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and the New American poets, which includes the New York School, the Black Mountain School, the Beat poets, and the San Francisco Renaissance. Consequently, many postmodern groups, such as the poets of the Language School, include Olson as a primary and precedent figure. He described himself not so much as a poet or writer but as "an archeologist of morning."

Olson's first book was Call Me Ishmael (1947), a study of Herman Melville's novel Moby Dick which was a continuation of his M.A. thesis from Wesleyan University.[5] In Projective Verse (1950), Olson called for a poetic meter based on the breath of the poet and an open construction based on sound and the linking of perceptions rather than syntax and logic. The poem "The Kingfishers", first published in 1949 and collected in his first book of poetry, In Cold Hell, in Thicket (1953), is an application of the manifesto.

His second collection, The Distances, was published in 1960. Olson served as rector of the Black Mountain College from 1951 to 1956. During this period, the college supported work by John Cage, Robert Creeley, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Duncan, Fielding Dawson, Cy Twombly, Jonathan Williams, Ed Dorn, Stan Brakhage and many other members of the 1950s American avant garde. Olson is listed as an influence on artists including Carolee Schneemann and James Tenney.[6]

Olson's reputation rests in the main on his complex, sometimes difficult poems such as "The Kingfishers", "In Cold Hell, in Thicket", and The Maximus Poems, work that tends to explore social, historical, and political concerns. His shorter verse, poems such as "Only The Red Fox, Only The Crow", "Other Than", "An Ode on Nativity", "Love", and "The Ring Of", manifest a sincere, original, accessible, emotionally powerful voice. "Letter 27 [withheld]" from The Maximus Poems weds Olson's lyric, historic, and aesthetic concerns. Olson coined the term postmodern in a letter of August 1951 to his friend and fellow poet, Robert Creeley.

In 1950, inspired by the example of Pound's Cantos (though Olson denied any direct relation between the two epics), Olson began writing The Maximus Poems, a project that was to remain unfinished at the time of his death. An exploration of American history in the broadest sense, Maximus is also an epic of place, Massachusetts and specifically the city of Gloucester where Olson had settled. Dogtown, the wild, rock-strewn centre of Cape Ann, next to Gloucester, is an important place in The Maximus Poems. (Olson used to write outside on a tree stump in Dogtown.) The whole work is also mediated through the voice of Maximus, based partly on Maximus of Tyre, an itinerant Greek philosopher, and partly on Olson himself. The final, unfinished volume imagines an ideal Gloucester in which communal values have replaced commercial ones.

Reviews

[Jonfaith · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is not as traitor to the US, but as fascist he should be judged. It is not his radio broadcasts, but the whole body of his work that should be the testimony.

This is an ugly but necessary book. Much has been said and written about Pound's activities in Italy during WWII, most infamously his radio broadcasts. The length to which his friends and fellow poets went to rescue him form an American firing squad is also of interest. HD wrote a wonderful book about the captivating Ezra who dazzled her mind and inspired so much infatuation, perhaps while hidden in a drawing room within a copious chair. She treads lightly around the infamy. Zukofsky wrote friends at the time about his personal repugnance but later spoke of the humane character of Pound. Davenport and Kenner both went to his side while at St Elizabeth's.

Olson would do no such thing. He gives us an account of the vile. there is a sympathy, but more prominent is the need to be truthful. Be forewarned, this is not an easy book to ponder.

[Joyce · Rating 5 out of 5]

this year i've read a lot of and around lowell and berryman, and their willingness to overlook ezra's offences in the name of poetry was a black spot in their biographies, they didn't even appear to think twice about it. so despite the fact olson's reputation seems lower than theirs (i haven't read enough of his work myself to have an opinion) the bravery of this makes him stand as far above them in nobility as he did in terms of bodily height. they are obviously unfinished, but what reconciled conclusion could olson have reached had he lived? he intended to demonstrate to pound the superiority of his ideals to facism by only showing beneficence and empathy. pound was of course far past persuading at this point, and is unchanged, while olson grapples with it and eventually realises the intractable nature of the man he's dealing with, and thinks he's better leaving biting dogs alone

[Ruth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was interested in the subject in general, but not specifically in these people. And so I had trouble getting into it. I don't want to say it wasn't edited because I'm sure someone worked hard to edit it- it's just that to me it felt like I was just reading random notes that Olsen wrote after visiting Pound. There was an incompleteness to it that was unsatisfying for me.

[Diwan Mal]

i wantto adapt this into a straub-huillet lol sicilia parody & bit of history lessons ofc and artemides knee but it's pound talking about Gaudier-Brzeska

[Kate]

Tulsa, OK

[Pirl]

Full review can be found on Northern Plunder: https://northernplunder.wordpress.com...