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Author photo. Portrait of Charles Olson, by Elsa Dorfman

Portrait of Charles Olson, by Elsa Dorfman

Charles Olson (1) [1910–1970]

This page covers the author of The Maximus Poems.

For other authors named Charles Olson, see the disambiguation page.

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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) — biography from The Maximus Poems… (more)
The Maximus Poems 305 copies, 5 reviews
Call Me Ishmael 179 copies, 5 reviews
Collected Prose 84 copies, 2 reviews
The Distances 39 copies
Mayan letters 27 copies, 1 review
Proprioception 15 copies
Stocking Cap 6 copies
Llamadme Ismael 3 copies, 1 review
Y & X 2 copies
Commencements 2 copies
Gedichte 2 copies
West 1 copy
Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama (Contributor, some editions) 897 copies, 7 reviews
The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry (Contributor) 727 copies, 3 reviews
A Pocket Book of Modern Verse (Contributor, some editions) 428 copies, 1 review
The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart: A Poetry Anthology (Contributor) 381 copies, 3 reviews
The Portable Sixties Reader (Contributor) 317 copies, 2 reviews
The New American Poetry 1945-1960 (Contributor) 308 copies, 2 reviews
Gods and Mortals: Modern Poems on Classical Myths (Contributor) 68 copies, 2 reviews
The Ecopoetry Anthology (Contributor) 44 copies, 1 review
A Lou Harrison Reader (SC) (Contributor) 2 copies
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