[New-Poetry] Re: Olson

Wed Jun 21 02:49:59 EDT 2006

p.s. I noticed yesterday that Ron Silliman's been talking up Olson on  
his blog-- I'll read and report back.

> Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 01:33:19 -0500
> From: Crisman Cooley <cc at opus0.com>
> Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: New-Poetry Digest, Vol 24, Issue 24
> To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Message-ID: <9718EB09-9147-46D5-AEA3-4F95C45F570B at opus0.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
>
>>
> 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
>>
>>
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>> ******************************************
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