Magnificent poetry. Nearly Homeric, reminiscent of the recitings of the ancient tales, the time-worn epics by Homer before small audiences of simple farmers and herdsmen in the Attic hills. A short visit to Gloucester, as I will be making soon, will communicate the emotion, rhythm and timeless words Olson here reads out.
Olson is important. I am not American. But I see the message or the struggle for a message...he is in a country whose moments are themselves a geometry...this is not clear, but he is struggling for more for all the precendents and for memory and the Polis. Paradoxically it is a small population. It is not grandiosity: it is what perhaps the US and the world could have become and in some ways it is about what it is. The Greeks are not mocked. Nor does he look obsessively towards Europe and even China (but he did want to go to Iraq and he went to look at the pre Columbian peoples.) He is not concerned only that it is "the banks" or usury, his is a constant beginning using Gloucester as a metaphor for what was and is to be, but in his letters (rhetoric to some extent) he compels Gloucestor. He is difficult to get a hold on but indeed place and space are important Pound's reaching back into history. The enigmatic nature of his huge poem is part of it's strength. He is intellectual but of the people (without getting to romantic about "The tragedy of the peasant's bent back...." but indeed the closest or one 'model' could be the Pisan Cantos....without the obsessive side of Pound. Prynne the enigmatic poet and Ed Dorn were, along with many others, influenced by him. NZ's Alan Loney also who reacted to the way he saw Olson's works laid out. The immediacy and so on....
I come back to the geography of it, the land falling off to the left where my father shot his scabby golf and the rest of us played baseball into the summer darkness until no flies could be seen and we came home to our various piazzas where the women buzzed To the left the land fell to the city, to the right, it fell to the sea I was so young my first memory is of a tent spread to feed lobsters to Rexall conventioneers, and my father, a man for kicks, came out of the tent roaring with a bread-knife in his teeth to take care of the druggist they’d told him had made a pass at my mother, she laughing, so sure, as round as her face, Hines pink and apple, under one of those frame hats women then This, is no bare incoming of novel abstract form, this is no welter or the forms of those events, this, Greeks, is the stopping of the battle It is the imposing of all those antecedent predecessions, the precessions of me, the generation of those facts which are my words, it is coming from all that I no longer am, yet am, the slow westward motion of more than I am There is no strict personal order for my inheritance. No Greek will be able to discriminate my body. An American is a complex of occasions, themselves a geometry of spatial nature. I have this sense, that I am one with my skin Plus this-plus this: that forever the geography which leans in on me I compell backwards I compell Gloucester to yield, to change Polis is this
Interesting to see Olson read. I once had most of the Maximus poems and Butterick's commentary from the (Auckland, NZ, University Library). I took them and some other books back. Later I got a notice for the Maximus and Butterick. And the M. book had those that go around in a complete circle. I argued for ages, convinced I had returned them. The library chap agreed and wiped it off as lost. No charge to me. I later found they had slipped under my car seat. I took both back, a bit embarrassed....But being a bookaphile a part of me wishes I hadn't! I have a lot of the Creeley-Olson letters and a smaller version though.
All that said I have never been completely sure what Olson is doing. Creeley read when he was here about 1996 from I suspect the very book I returned (altho I suspect he had his own). He also turned the book around as he read some of those later ones. Olson clearly shifts the focus from Greek and Europe etc to the US but still retains that universality. He is also in touch with 'the people' I think. And the details and 'reality' of such a polis or community etc I'm not so sure his reading is so good. But maybe it is the recording. But it helps to see & hear him.
Beautiful poem. Doesn't it make you ill when you look at the poetry of Carol Anne Duffy and Simon Armitage and realise that there were poets like Olson, Williams, Pound etc. What has happened to modern poetry?
I know what you are saying but I actually like Duffy. She is one of the few Poet Laureates I like. Different modality than Williams or Pound, Moore and so on.
micro-finalizing the auto-completed suicide note on how coats went extinct like our socks on the coat rack fedora was a man no more after the simple ukulele chords thread bare, out of tune, agony. simps were promised not the moment but the moment they sacrificed to make music.
I think his poetry in Maximus (except for pieces that are more lyrical) is never "beautiful". He is passionate about this local-universal thing he seems to be trying to convey. Pound was the same but focused more on some more theoretical "higher culture" and his unfortunate anti-Semitism. Olson keeps to the earth so to speak and Maximus or Gloucester is kind of personified. Something like that.
Magnificent poetry. Nearly Homeric, reminiscent of the recitings of the ancient tales, the time-worn epics by Homer before small audiences of simple farmers and herdsmen in the Attic hills. A short visit to Gloucester, as I will be making soon, will communicate the emotion, rhythm and timeless words Olson here reads out.
SO MAGNIFICENT AS YEARS GO ON
Olson is important. I am not American. But I see the message or the struggle for a message...he is in a country whose moments are themselves a geometry...this is not clear, but he is struggling for more for all the precendents and for memory and the Polis. Paradoxically it is a small population. It is not grandiosity: it is what perhaps the US and the world could have become and in some ways it is about what it is. The Greeks are not mocked. Nor does he look obsessively towards Europe and even China (but he did want to go to Iraq and he went to look at the pre Columbian peoples.) He is not concerned only that it is "the banks" or usury, his is a constant beginning using Gloucester as a metaphor for what was and is to be, but in his letters (rhetoric to some extent) he compels Gloucestor. He is difficult to get a hold on but indeed place and space are important Pound's reaching back into history. The enigmatic nature of his huge poem is part of it's strength. He is intellectual but of the people (without getting to romantic about "The tragedy of the peasant's bent back...." but indeed the closest or one 'model' could be the Pisan Cantos....without the obsessive side of Pound. Prynne the enigmatic poet and Ed Dorn were, along with many others, influenced by him. NZ's Alan Loney also who reacted to the way he saw Olson's works laid out. The immediacy and so on....
"The immediacy and so on," Exactly that.
Wonderful! You know your Olson
Great comment
I come back to the geography of it,
the land falling off to the left
where my father shot his scabby golf
and the rest of us played baseball
into the summer darkness until no flies
could be seen and we came home
to our various piazzas where the women
buzzed
To the left the land fell to the city,
to the right, it fell to the sea
I was so young my first memory
is of a tent spread to feed lobsters
to Rexall conventioneers, and my father,
a man for kicks, came out of the tent roaring
with a bread-knife in his teeth to take care of
the druggist they’d told him had made a pass at
my mother, she laughing, so sure, as round
as her face, Hines pink and apple,
under one of those frame hats women then
This, is no bare incoming
of novel abstract form, this
is no welter or the forms
of those events, this,
Greeks, is the stopping
of the battle
It is the imposing
of all those antecedent predecessions, the precessions
of me, the generation of those facts
which are my words, it is coming
from all that I no longer am,
yet am, the slow westward motion of
more than I am
There is no strict personal order
for my inheritance.
No Greek will be able
to discriminate my body.
An American
is a complex of occasions,
themselves a geometry
of spatial nature.
I have this sense,
that I am one
with my skin
Plus this-plus this:
that forever the geography
which leans in
on me I compell
backwards I compell Gloucester
to yield, to
change
Polis
is this
I love this poem.
Are you related to Charles Olson?
Interesting to see Olson read. I once had most of the Maximus poems and Butterick's commentary from the (Auckland, NZ, University Library). I took them and some other books back. Later I got a notice for the Maximus and Butterick. And the M. book had those that go around in a complete circle. I argued for ages, convinced I had returned them. The library chap agreed and wiped it off as lost. No charge to me. I later found they had slipped under my car seat. I took both back, a bit embarrassed....But being a bookaphile a part of me wishes I hadn't! I have a lot of the Creeley-Olson letters and a smaller version though.
All that said I have never been completely sure what Olson is doing. Creeley read when he was here about 1996 from I suspect the very book I returned (altho I suspect he had his own). He also turned the book around as he read some of those later ones. Olson clearly shifts the focus from Greek and Europe etc to the US but still retains that universality. He is also in touch with 'the people' I think. And the details and 'reality' of such a polis or community etc
I'm not so sure his reading is so good. But maybe it is the recording. But it helps to see & hear him.
Olson delighting at play. . .even more, plus this. Exquisite, leaning in on me.
Forever my teacher!
bang on a can brings me here! AMAZING!
..it is coming from all that I no longer am... yet am... the slow westward motion of more than I am...
so beautiful and so passionate
e mi illumino d'immenso ...wow 🥰🥰🥰
Beautiful poem. Doesn't it make you ill when you look at the poetry of Carol Anne Duffy and Simon Armitage and realise that there were poets like Olson, Williams, Pound etc. What has happened to modern poetry?
I know what you are saying but I actually like Duffy. She is one of the few Poet Laureates I like. Different modality than Williams or Pound, Moore and so on.
This isnt modern poetry though, it is more of a reaction to it.
Like this very much
Olsen the master,
There's a lot of 'body' in his work, as revealed by his gestures, which isn't apparent off the page.
From My Poems To Yours
Polis
Simon Armitage is not so bad, really. Not amazing, but good.
micro-finalizing the auto-completed suicide note on how coats went extinct like our socks on the coat rack fedora was a man no more after the simple ukulele chords thread bare, out of tune, agony. simps were promised not the moment but the moment they sacrificed to make music.
I think his poetry in Maximus (except for pieces that are more lyrical) is never "beautiful". He is passionate about this local-universal thing he seems to be trying to convey. Pound was the same but focused more on some more theoretical "higher culture" and his unfortunate anti-Semitism. Olson keeps to the earth so to speak and Maximus or Gloucester is kind of personified. Something like that.
Gloucester is his "localverse." (Yes, pun intended.)
No WCW no Olson
2 geniuses