[New-Poetry] Re: New-Poetry Digest, Vol 24, Issue 24

[Crisman Cooley]

>
Dave,
I was surprised as I reread while I typed how pronounced the  
generality, as you rightly call out, is of this poem-- how it strays  
from Olson's own roots in thing-language of Williams.  The poem I  
quoted is fairly late (1966), quite different from his poems of the  
'50's.   Now I believe the error of equating words with things can be  
corrected by reading Saussure-- but I agree that general ideas stray  
from sense perceptions (and the erotic impulse?) and lose their  
lifeblood, become intellectual ornaments.  At this time in his life  
(if the linked essay is right) Olson 'was only interested in God'--  
and of course no idea is more general and less sense-specific than  
that :).

Your reaction poem does not strike me as general at all, the images  
are quite specific.  Olson never relates dialogue, that I can  
remember, as _Flaunt_ does.  The tone is, I would say, flippant, and  
should be instead kind of grand and sombre, weighty as a stone if you  
want to pastiche Olson.  Maybe that's not what you meant to do, but  
to express your esthetic reaction to his work, so that the flippancy  
is more a measure of your own lack of desire to be serious about  
Olson's seriousness.  I actually admire Olson's sincerity.  I just  
finished Nabokov's translation of _Eugene Onegin_ where (to my ears)  
too much of Nabokov's 'wit' shows through (bird droppings on the  
monument)-- though I did laugh out loud at how Pushkin's narrator  
scares ducks by reading poetry to them.  I don't know what you mean  
by "I wanted to take the piss out of that gesture of form."  What do  
you mean by "piss"?  Metaphor lost this side of the pond.    Must say  
Olson's "form" is lost on me-- but then I don't like (theologically  
speaking) his (and Creeley's) notion of form as an extension of  
content.   Shape that's content's no shape at all.  I prefer the  
notion of their Black Mountain College colleague: form as an empty  
shape that anything can fill-- I mean, of John Cage.

But, it's late,
Cris




> Dave,


> my reservations about this, Cris, are those of a certain generality  
> of its
> language, I think too that formally it is very weak, I quite  
> deliberately
> put my reaction poem in the style of a versical palimpest, I know  
> Olson's
> wasa divided haphazardly into bits, but to be honest I wanted to  
> take the
> piss out of that gesture at form.
>
> Best
>
> Dave



> From: "David Bircumshaw" <david.bircumshaw at ntlworld.com>
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Olson
>
> I'll do this as one verse then:
>
> FLAUNT
>
> It was Sunday afternoon and we
> were a bit pissed and on the kerb-side
> she saw, and I saw
> stricken a pigeon lying on the road.
> Pick
> pick pick her up she said
> and so
> unwilling and willing
> (because she said)
> I did
> which fluttered which panicked which
> it's scared I said
> trembled in my hands which
> we took back in a cardboard box
> and gave
> bread & water & bird-seed
> and put her (we
> decided it was a she and talked
> about what was to be
> her name and I
> said "Forlorn" which
> Vicky misheard as "Flaunt")
> and a man from Animal Rights
> came round to strangle her
> but we wouldn't tell him where Flaunt was
> and in the morning
> no feathers no blood no
> Flaunt anymore had flown.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Cris" <cc at opus0.com>
> To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Sent: Monday, June 19, 2006 3:51 PM
> Subject: [New-Poetry] Olson
>
>
>> Beginning when Hal posted the link to _Projective Verse_ and I read
>> it (for the first time), rekindling my interest in Olson's project,
>> another light turned on over the dark map of poetry, I took the UC
>> Berkeley edition of Maximus down from my shelf and READ as we drove
>> from San Miguel (sorry I missed you Hal-- are you there yet?) through
>> Guadalajara to Tepic, Mazatlan, beaches at Guaymas, Hermosillo,
>> through Nogales to Nogales and across the very hottest part of the
>> journey, Arizona, arriving last night in Santa Barbara, after a day
>> in Del Mar where I looked for the link to Enyalion, found these very
>> interesting notes on Olson and the Ancient [
>> http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/olson/blog/NOTES%20ON%20CHARLES% 
>> 20OLSON
>> %20AND%20THE%20ARCHAIC.pdf
>> ]   just this morning completed _The Maximus Poems_.  Much to admire
>> and learn from, especially good timing since I've completed my book
>> length poem and am EDITING, now with CO in mind.  A sample, in case
>> you may not have listened to Maximus for a while:
>>
>> The hour of evening--supper hour, for my neighbors--quietness
>> in the street, and kids gone and the night
>> coming to end the day (which has piled itself up
>> in shallows, and some
>> accomplishment--sweet air of evening promises
>> anew life's endlessness, life itself's
>> Beauty which all forever so long as there is
>> a human race like flowers and, I suppose,
>> other animals--they too must know something
>> of what it is to love, to be alive, to have
>> life, to be on the sweetness of Earth herself,
>> great Goddess we take for granted, God the Father so much
>> more the strain of our beings, she the sweetness
>> we arrive in pursuit of
>> --when in such as this
>> hour falling suddenly the air suddenly
>> the voices of each child now
>> distinct, the
>> light itself, as the air, suddenly
>> separating--disassociation of day, wit
>> approaching--love approaching because
>> Night accompanies
>> Heaven coming
>> to love Earth, the ambush
>> they the Sons the usurpers
>> turned on their
>> Father, in the dark knowing
>> his habit, to come,
>> with Night, to make Love to
>> their Mother--& they harmed him,
>> Heaven went away that night, Night
>> stayed, Earth in fact was a Party to her sons'
>> action--these losses
>> regained each day when
>>
>> time brings
>> the shortness of
>> Day to an end (Night's daughter
>> leaves Earth to Night--and Heaven can,
>> again, fall in his Desire onto
>> Earth.  Except for this interference
>> of ourselves, children of this
>> long & Eternal sequence of
>> Love & Desire, of our own lives'
>> scandal in
>> the Story
>> as those Sons ruined
>> their Father and gained Earth or
>> Their Right, and divided
>> us--as we too divide the
>> air of Heaven the mode of
>> Love-making which penetrates Earth as
>> if now it, earth, the
>> ball also solely it is
>> as the sun also is, and the moon solely
>> planets--stars, three in
>> all the heavens' million milliions
>> which we can see, at night--all nothing
>> but what is, equally--all physica
>> if now Earth again has, in her will turned
>> to shift her axis and,
>> already in a
>> 10,000 year readjustment of
>> her magnetic field, we'll--
>> or so Bruce Heezen speculates that
>> then (5000 years from now, mid-point, or double
>> Platonic month--two, as
>>
>> there's been two since
>> Indo-European man came
>> from the Caucasus onto
>> the Plains--a
>> like Time--he brought
>> these versions of the animate
>> nature of Creation, of
>> ourselves)--if in 4000 years we'll
>> lose because the sun's
>> Gamma--Edda gone to
>> Gamma--
>> will pour through the enveloping
>> Atmosphere--Heaven the Father of Us
>> not the stars, not the Universe, solely
>> this extended skin of our own
>>   composite body--miracle of
>> form will
>> break--broken into, spoiled in
>> nature and by Universe, dogged down by
>> rays--Lord, Father, correct Earth and
>> Love as
>> at this hour, each day, in our mercy
>> of being your Child
>> in the Paternity of only
>> Aether, love us and
>> keep us in Your
>> Receptacle of
>> Which You Are The
>> Source--and Night the
>> Sweetness of the
>> Intercourse of which
>> We Are the Separable,
>> & tentative Eternal creatures,
>> Men,
>> and Women, simulacrum of the
>>
>> Story, semblable of
>> You
>> --of which Life is not
>> solely Ours not
>> Everywhere
>> not all
>> here on Earth
>> & in these
>> troubled
>> stories
>> of our Selves, of our
>> Parents and their repeated
>> occurrence
>> Each Turn of Earth
>> Before Our Own Eyes
>> Each Day She
>> Turns Her Back on
>> Sun, And Night
>> brings Heaven
>> to Her to
>> Begin Again, Love
>> And Man Shall Continue To Be in the Mystica of
>> This One System Flying
>> Loose in the melee of the
>> Universe
>> And the Perfect Bowl
>> of the Sky of Gloucester
>> in which these Events
>> May be Seen
>> Each Evening Hour
>> Each Day before
>> Night comes
>> to cover Heaven's
>> approach, to make Love to
>>
>> Earth
>> And bear Us
>> as our Ancestors were
>> So Borne
>>
>> -- Charles Olson
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 15:56:59 +0100
> From: "David Bircumshaw" <david.bircumshaw at ntlworld.com>
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Olson
> To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp;	Views"
> 	<new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Message-ID: <001501c69479$c93c1730$e3c60556 at rayuv8pcloxi9v>
> Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> my reservations about this, Cris, are those of a certain generality  
> of its
> language, I think too that formally it is very weak, I quite  
> deliberately
> put my reaction poem in the style of a versical palimpest, I know  
> Olson's
> wasa divided haphazardly into bits, but to be honest I wanted to  
> take the
> piss out of that gesture at form.
>
> Best
>
> Dave
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Cris" <cc at opus0.com>
> To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Sent: Monday, June 19, 2006 3:51 PM
> Subject: [New-Poetry] Olson
>
>
>> Beginning when Hal posted the link to _Projective Verse_ and I read
>> it (for the first time), rekindling my interest in Olson's project,
>> another light turned on over the dark map of poetry, I took the UC
>> Berkeley edition of Maximus down from my shelf and READ as we drove
>> from San Miguel (sorry I missed you Hal-- are you there yet?) through
>> Guadalajara to Tepic, Mazatlan, beaches at Guaymas, Hermosillo,
>> through Nogales to Nogales and across the very hottest part of the
>> journey, Arizona, arriving last night in Santa Barbara, after a day
>> in Del Mar where I looked for the link to Enyalion, found these very
>> interesting notes on Olson and the Ancient [
>> http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/olson/blog/NOTES%20ON%20CHARLES% 
>> 20OLSON
>> %20AND%20THE%20ARCHAIC.pdf
>> ]   just this morning completed _The Maximus Poems_.  Much to admire
>> and learn from, especially good timing since I've completed my book
>> length poem and am EDITING, now with CO in mind.  A sample, in case
>> you may not have listened to Maximus for a while:
>>
>> The hour of evening--supper hour, for my neighbors--quietness
>> in the street, and kids gone and the night
>> coming to end the day (which has piled itself up
>> in shallows, and some
>> accomplishment--sweet air of evening promises
>> anew life's endlessness, life itself's
>> Beauty which all forever so long as there is
>> a human race like flowers and, I suppose,
>> other animals--they too must know something
>> of what it is to love, to be alive, to have
>> life, to be on the sweetness of Earth herself,
>> great Goddess we take for granted, God the Father so much
>> more the strain of our beings, she the sweetness
>> we arrive in pursuit of
>> --when in such as this
>> hour falling suddenly the air suddenly
>> the voices of each child now
>> distinct, the
>> light itself, as the air, suddenly
>> separating--disassociation of day, wit
>> approaching--love approaching because
>> Night accompanies
>> Heaven coming
>> to love Earth, the ambush
>> they the Sons the usurpers
>> turned on their
>> Father, in the dark knowing
>> his habit, to come,
>> with Night, to make Love to
>> their Mother--& they harmed him,
>> Heaven went away that night, Night
>> stayed, Earth in fact was a Party to her sons'
>> action--these losses
>> regained each day when
>>
>> time brings
>> the shortness of
>> Day to an end (Night's daughter
>> leaves Earth to Night--and Heaven can,
>> again, fall in his Desire onto
>> Earth.  Except for this interference
>> of ourselves, children of this
>> long & Eternal sequence of
>> Love & Desire, of our own lives'
>> scandal in
>> the Story
>> as those Sons ruined
>> their Father and gained Earth or
>> Their Right, and divided
>> us--as we too divide the
>> air of Heaven the mode of
>> Love-making which penetrates Earth as
>> if now it, earth, the
>> ball also solely it is
>> as the sun also is, and the moon solely
>> planets--stars, three in
>> all the heavens' million milliions
>> which we can see, at night--all nothing
>> but what is, equally--all physica
>> if now Earth again has, in her will turned
>> to shift her axis and,
>> already in a
>> 10,000 year readjustment of
>> her magnetic field, we'll--
>> or so Bruce Heezen speculates that
>> then (5000 years from now, mid-point, or double
>> Platonic month--two, as
>>
>> there's been two since
>> Indo-European man came
>> from the Caucasus onto
>> the Plains--a
>> like Time--he brought
>> these versions of the animate
>> nature of Creation, of
>> ourselves)--if in 4000 years we'll
>> lose because the sun's
>> Gamma--Edda gone to
>> Gamma--
>> will pour through the enveloping
>> Atmosphere--Heaven the Father of Us
>> not the stars, not the Universe, solely
>> this extended skin of our own
>>   composite body--miracle of
>> form will
>> break--broken into, spoiled in
>> nature and by Universe, dogged down by
>> rays--Lord, Father, correct Earth and
>> Love as
>> at this hour, each day, in our mercy
>> of being your Child
>> in the Paternity of only
>> Aether, love us and
>> keep us in Your
>> Receptacle of
>> Which You Are The
>> Source--and Night the
>> Sweetness of the
>> Intercourse of which
>> We Are the Separable,
>> & tentative Eternal creatures,
>> Men,
>> and Women, simulacrum of the
>>
>> Story, semblable of
>> You
>> --of which Life is not
>> solely Ours not
>> Everywhere
>> not all
>> here on Earth
>> & in these
>> troubled
>> stories
>> of our Selves, of our
>> Parents and their repeated
>> occurrence
>> Each Turn of Earth
>> Before Our Own Eyes
>> Each Day She
>> Turns Her Back on
>> Sun, And Night
>> brings Heaven
>> to Her to
>> Begin Again, Love
>> And Man Shall Continue To Be in the Mystica of
>> This One System Flying
>> Loose in the melee of the
>> Universe
>> And the Perfect Bowl
>> of the Sky of Gloucester
>> in which these Events
>> May be Seen
>> Each Evening Hour
>> Each Day before
>> Night comes
>> to cover Heaven's
>> approach, to make Love to
>>
>> Earth
>> And bear Us
>> as our Ancestors were
>> So Borne
>>
>> -- Charles Olson
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
> End of New-Poetry Digest, Vol 24, Issue 24
> ******************************************