SOURCE: "In and About the Maximus Poems," in Iowa Review, VOL. 6, No. 1, Winter, 1975, pp. 118-30.

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 of The Maximus Poems, "This is a story of the events of a man's experience and the particular events of a man's experience…." Williams, also indebted to Whitehead, perhaps appreciated the accuracy of "events"; a poem is an event, the actualization of its occasion. Set out chronologically, the poems tell that story, in this simple sequential way are narrative. We search for other modes ofcoherence, for themes, perhaps for historical narrative, but most essential to understanding The Maximus Poems is Olson's adherence to the method of field composition in which stance toward reality is all-important and the poems that issue from the...