Charles Olson (1910-1970) defined and practiced an open, kinetic poetry which influenced many of the second generation of modern poets.Charles Olson, born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1910, was an ...
Read more
Charles Olson has come to be recognized in the few years since his death as a major shaper of a postmodern American poetry, the chief successor to Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams. He was a lea...
Read more
Charles Olson emerged at the mid-century with a manifesto for a new poetry, "Projective Verse," exactly at a time when other American poets had not only rejected the modernist heritage of Ezra Pound ...
Read more
Charles Olson shaped postmodern American writing through his poetry and his essays. As the successor to Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and the inheritor of Herman Melville's prophetic voice, h...
Read more
In the following review, the critic offers a negative assessment of The Maximus Poems.
Whoever dislikes the poetry of Charles Olson should take note of the abundant testimony of his admirers. Not all ...
Read more
In the following essay, von Hallberg discusses the defining influence of Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams on Olson's poetry.
Charles Olson's name comes up often in discussions of t...
Read more
In the following excerpt, Paul presents a critical overview of the first volume of Maximus Poems.
Chronological order is implicit in the practice of projective verse. As William Carlos Williams said o...
Read more
In the following essay, Christensen discusses the major themes of The Maximus Poems.
Charles Olson's distinguished long poem, the Maximus sequence, achieved final form with the publication of i...
Read more
In the following excerpt, Thurley faults Olson for what he perceives as superficial and erroneous elements in his poetics.
A number of distinguished poets in the 1950s … received stimulus and d...
Read more
In the following essay, Creeley discusses Olson's concepts of history and identity.
Talking to a gathering of student writers (S.U.N.Y. College at Cortland, N.Y., October 20, 1967) Olson again ...
Read more
In the following essay, Butterick examines how Olson attempted to break with traditional western rationalism.
Charles Olson was always very pleased by the fact that the only time he was ever given a p...
Read more
In the following excerpt, Merrill examines the principles underlying Olson's unorthodox use of language.
Once at a poetry reading at Brandeis Charles Olson "got so damned offended&#...
Read more
In the following essay, Kellogg examines Olson's shorter poems in light of the poet's own principles of direct experiential knowledge.
It's going to be somebody else's bus...
Read more
Critical Essay by Thom Gunn
Charles Olson … exists in the world of factions—of manifestoes and extravagant gestures. He appears to be influenced by such rebels against orthodoxy as Pound...
Read more
Critical Essay by Thomas F. Merrill
Charles Olson wrote "The Kingfishers" in 1949 when his "stance toward reality" was quickening. Soon he would codify that stance and the ...
Read more
Critical Essay by Phillip E. Smith Ii
One of the important topics in Olson's work is the relationship of the idea of culture to the idea of community. As he worked on The Maximus Poems in the e...
Read more
Critical Essay by Sherman Paul
[There] is evidence in the eleven plays collected [in The Fiery Hunt and Other Plays]—play, dance, dance-and-verse, opera—that Olson knew the various theat...
Read more
Critical Essay by Robert Creeley
[In Call Me Ishmael Olson] makes clear his relation to a responsiveness and decision in such writing to be found only in such comparable works as D. H. Lawrence'...
Read more
Critical Essay by Martin L. Pops
Call Me Ishmael (1947) is a book in name only. It is print rendered aural and haptic, a metaphor for manuscript and collage. That is why its sound and shape are so sta...
Read more
Critical Essay by George F. Butterick
The term ["postmodern"] was first used, apparently, by the historian Toynbee, although Olson—and this is not generally known—may have ...
Read more
Critical Essay by Sherman Paul
Olson's push, to use his own emphatic and often self-characterizing word, is important. This may be gauged by the fact that anyone wishing to understand recent po...
Read more
Critical Essay by Paul Christensen
Given the diversity of Olson's interests and preoccupations as a poet, we are confronted with the question: do the life and work of this poet have a design? A...
Read more
Critical Essay by Charles Altieri
Charles Olson was not a man to be content with fascinating images. Arrogant, confusing, paralyzed at times by perpetual struggle with the language of the tribe, Olson...
Read more
Critical Essay by Paul Breslin
The Black Mountain theoretical program, which is mainly Olson's creation, I find profoundly confused, desperate, and pretentious. If it has given its adherents a ...
Read more
Critical Essay by Roberta Berke
Stated in its simplest form, Olson's Projective Verse theory has three main principles. The first is that a poem must be a high "energy discharge" ...
Read more
Critical Essay by Thomas F. Merrill
Once at a poetry reading at Brandeis Charles Olson "got so damned offended" that he screamed at his audience, "You people are so literate I don...
Read more
Charles Olson
Charles (John) Olson
