In Artvoice, Michael Kelleher on Charles Olson's connection to Buffalo:

Buffalo’s poetry roots run deep. Poet Ann Lauterbach once dubbed it “Poetry City,” a moniker that has not taken hold of our imaginations in the same way as have “City of No Illusions,” “City of Good Neighbors” or “Queen City.” But the claim is not without merit. Buffalo has been a hotbed of poetic experimentation for nearly half a century, and continues to attract a steady, if modestly proportioned, stream of young poets devoted to poetry as something more than a parlor game for the idle rich or a therapeutic outlet for the mildly insane.

One of these roots runs eastward across the state to a little graveyard in Gloucester, Massachussetts, where rests the oversized coffin of Charles Olson, poet, author of The Maximus Poems, Call Me Ishmael and the widely influential manifesto, “Projective Verse.” Almost every major movement in American avant-garde poetry since the Second World War, from the Beats to ecopoetics, from Language Poetry to Def Poetry, can find its roots in the poetics of Charles Olson.

The six-foot-eight Olson was recruited by the legendary architect of the UB English Department, Al Cook, to begin a teaching stint in the fall of 1963. He remained only briefly, returning to Gloucester for good in 1965 following the sudden, tragic death of his wife in a car accident. But his influence can still be felt in the spirit of do-it-yourself poetic production that continues to thrive here.

Read the rest of Kelleher's article here.

Source: Artvoice

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Recommend this article...