|
| Selected Letters
ISBN: 9780520918009
Platform/Publisher: JSTOR / University of California Press
Digital rights: Users: unlimited; Printing: chapter; Download: chapter
Subjects: Olson Charles 1910-1970 -- Correspondence; Poets American -- 20th century -- Correspondence;
For Charles Olson, letters were not only a daily means of communication with friends but were at the same time a vehicle for exploratory thought. In fact, many of Olson's finest works, including Projective Verse and the Maximus Poems, were formulated as letters. Olson's letters are important to an understanding of his definition of the postmodern, and through the play of mind exhibited here we recognize him as one of the vital thinkers of the twentieth century.
In this volume, edited and annotated by Ralph Maud, we see Olson at the height of his powers and also at his most human. Nearly 200 letters, selected from a known 3,000, demonstrate the wide range of Olson's interests and the depth of his concern for the future. Maud includes letters to friends and loved ones, job and grant applications, letters of recommendation, and Black Mountain College business letters, as well as correspondence illuminating Olson's poetics. As we read through the letters, which span the years from 1931, when Olson was an undergraduate, to his death in 1970, a fascinating portrait of this complex poet and thinker emerges.
The "elder statesman" of the Black Mountain school of poets, Charles Olson directly affected the work of fellow teachers Robert Duncan and Robert Creeley, as well as students including John Wieners, Jonathan Williams, Joel Oppenheimer, and Edward Dorn. In his Selected Writings (1967), Olson emphasizes "how to restore man to his "dynamic.' There is too much concern, he feels, with end and not enough with instant. It is not things that are important, but what happens between them. . . . He thinks of poetry as transfers of energy and he reminds us that dance is kinesis, not mimesis" (N.Y. Times). Human Universe and Other Essays is a collection of interesting pieces on subjects ranging from Homer to Yeats. Proprioception is one of Olson's seminal essays on verse and the poet's awareness. Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, Olson attended Wesleyan, Harvard, and Yale Universities. He taught at Harvard University and Clark and Black Mountain colleges. He received two Guggenheim Fellowships and a grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation to study Mayan hieroglyphs in the Yucatan. His involvement with early Indian societies stimulated his interest in mysticism and the drug culture. (Bowker Author Biography) |
