Selected poems1993
by Charles Olson
Charles Olson, the poet who coined the word post-modern and helped shape the generation that would emerge under its mantle, is known for the immense range of his intellectual and poetic reach. Here, in this selection by Robert Creeley, Olson's personal friend and literary ally, is the more "intimate order" of the poet who sought to embrace all of history and human thought.
Olson came from working-class immigrant roots in a Massachusetts mill town. A scholar of profound originality and vision, he worked for Roosevelt's administration during the war years, then at Black Mountain, the prototypical experimental college and enclave of avantgarde writers and artists. In 1957 he settled in Gloucester, a town on the shore north of Boston where he had spent summers as a child.
It was Gloucester,...