The Collected Poems of Charles Olson

by Olson, Charles; Butterick, George F.

• ISBN13: 9780520212312
• ISBN10: 0520212312
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-11-01
• Publisher: Univ of California Pr

Summary

A seminal figure in post-World War II literature, Charles Olson (1910-1970) has helped define the postmodern sensibility. His poetry is marked by an almost limitless range of interest and extraordinary depth of feeling. Olson's themes are among the largest conceivable: empowering love, political responsibility, historical discovery and cultural reckoning, the wisdom of dreams and the transformation of consciousness--all carried in a voice both intimate and grand, American and timeless, impassioned and coolly demanding. Until recently, Olson's reputation as a major figure in American literature has rested primarily on his theoretical writings and his epic work, theMaximus Poems. WithThe Collected Poemsan even more impressive Olson emerges. This volume brings together all of Olson's work and extends the poetic accomplishment that influenced a generation. Charles Olson was praised by his contemporaries and emulated by his successors. He was declared by William Carlos Williams to be "a major poet with a sweep of understanding of the world, a feeling for other men that staggers me." His indispensable essays, "Projective Verse" and "Human Universe," and his study of Melville,Call Me Ishmael, remain as fresh today as when they were written.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION	xix
Purgatory Blind	3	(1)
You, Hart Crane	4	(1)
Birth's Obituary	4	(1)
Atalanta	5	(1)
White Horse	6	(1)
Fire Is	6	(1)
Fable for Slumber	7	(1)
Hymn to the Word	8	(1)
Tomorrow	9	(1)
The House	10	(1)
By Cure of--Sulfa	11	(1)
Law	11	(1)
A Lion upon the Floor	12	(1)
Sing, Mister, Sing	13	(1)
The K	14	(1)
Pacific Lament	15	(1)
She	16	(1)
She, Thus	17	(1)
The Night	18	(1)
A Translation	19	(1)
Her Dream, Half Remembered	20	(1)
Ballad for Americans	21	(2)
Key West	23	(1)
New England March	24	(1)
Lower Field--Enniscorthy	24	(1)
Said Adam	25	(2)
Burial Ground	27	(1)
Enniscorthy Suite	28	(3)
The Town	31	(3)
Afternoon	34	(1)
2 Propositions and 3 Proof	35	(2)
A Lustrum for You, E.P.	37	(3)
The Winter After	40	(1)
Marry the Marrow	41	(2)
There Was a Youth Whose Name Was Thomas Granger	43	(2)
Trinacria	45	(1)
La Preface	46	(1)
The Dragon-Fly	47	(1)
Epigraph to Call Me Ishmael	48	(1)
Lalage!	48	(1)
The Return	49	(1)
Bagatto	50	(1)
"Double, double, root and branch..."	51	(1)
The Fool	52	(2)
A Constance, This Day	54	(1)
The Moebius Strip	54	(2)
X to the Nth	56	(1)
The Green Man	57	(1)
Canto One Hundred and One	58	(1)
Your Eyes	59	(1)
R(2)	59	(1)
In the Hills South of Capernaum, Port	60	(2)
A Spring Song for Cagli	62	(1)
Willie Francis and the Electric Chair	63	(3)
Move Over	66	(1)
A Fish Is the Flower of Water	67	(1)
Landscape, Without Color	68	(1)
Only the Red Fox, Only the Crow	69	(1)
All You Can Do	70	(1)
"Put him this way..."	70	(2)
Conqueror	72	(1)
Conqueror	73	(1)
February 10, One Year Too Late	74	(1)
"Elements of clothes..."	74	(1)
Igor Stravinsky	75	(1)
Troilus	76	(2)
Siena	78	(1)
Sans Name	79	(1)
Li Po	80	(1)
Tanto e Amara	80	(1)
Name-Day Night	81	(1)
La Chute	82	(1)
La Chute II	83	(2)
La Chute III	85	(1)
Dura	85	(1)
The Kingfishers	86	(7)
Epigon	93	(2)
The Laughing Ones	95	(1)
The Praises	96	(5)
The Babe	101	(2)
"all things stand out against the sky..."	103	(1)
"hear my prayer my father..."	104	(1)
"under every green tree..."	104	(1)
The Advantage	105	(1)
These Days	106	(1)
A Po-sy, A Po-sy	107	(6)
"here i am, naked..."	113	(2)
"It's SPRing AgAIN!"	115	(2)
Asymptotes	117	(1)
The Morning News	118	(7)
A Gloss	125	(1)
Of Lady, of Beauty, of Stream	126	(1)
At Yorktown	127	(2)
The She-Bear	129	(5)
The She-Bear (II)	134	(6)
To the She-Bear: The 1st Song	140	(3)
Diaries of Death	143	(1)
"friday, Good Friday..."	144	(1)
Cinos	145	(2)
Bigmans	147	(2)
Bigmans II	149	(6)
In Cold Hell, in Thicket	155	(5)
For Sappho, Back	160	(3)
"Help Me, Venus, You Who Led Me On"	163	(2)
Other Than	165	(1)
Quatrain	166	(1)
Day Song	166	(3)
Day Song, the Day After	169	(1)
The Dry Ode	170	(1)
A B Cs	171	(2)
A B Cs (2)	173	(1)
A B Cs (3--for Rimbaud)	174	(1)
The Story of an Olson, and Bad Thing	175	(7)
Adamo Me...	182	(7)
La Torre	189	(1)
The Cause, the Cause	190	(4)
Of Mathilde	194	(1)
The Gate Is Prouti	195	(1)
There Are Sounds...	196	(1)
Issue, Mood	197	(3)
Signs	200	(1)
The Moon Is the Number 18	201	(2)
Abstract #1, Yucatan	203	(1)
This	203	(3)
He, Who, in His Abandoned Infancy, Spoke of Jesus, Caesar, Those Who Beg, and Hell	206	(1)
Knowing All Ways, Including the Transposition of Continents	207	(1)
Concerning Exaggeration, or How, Properly, to Heap Up	208	(4)
To Gerhardt, There, Among Europe's Things of Which He Has Written Us in His "Brief an Creeley und Olson"	212	(10)
The Fathers	222	(3)
Applause	225	(4)
Issues from the Hand of God	229	(2)
A Round & A Canon	231	(2)
Letter for Melville 1951	233	(8)
"pitcher, how..."	241	(2)
The Ring of	243	(1)
For Cy Twombly Faced with His First Chicago & N.Y. Shows	244	(1)
An Ode on Nativity	245	(4)
"At midnight, after hours of love..."	249	(1)
The Clouds	250	(1)
For a Lady of Whom I Speak	250	(1)
To the Algae	251	(1)
The Civil War	251	(2)
The Connection	253	(3)
The Friend	256	(2)
War on the Mind in a Time of Love	258	(1)
A Discrete Gloss	259	(3)
Kin	262	(1)
The Thing Was Moving	263	(2)
"He in the dark stall..."	265	(3)
Black Mt. College Has a Few Words for a Visitor	268	(1)
Merce of Egypt	269	(2)
A Toss, for John Cage	271	(2)
The Leader	273	(2)
"The winds which blew my daughter..."	275	(1)
From the Inca	275	(1)
Dramatis Personae	276	(2)
The Collected Poems Of	278	(4)
Common Place	282	(2)
"It's got to this..."	284	(1)
"my poor dumb body..."	284	(1)
"my poor dumb body..."	285	(1)
Well	286	(1)
The Mast	286	(4)
For a Man Gone to Stuttgart Who Left an Automobile Behind Him	290	(1)
"The sea is an archeology..."	291	(1)
Proensa	291	(2)
Jas Jargon	293	(2)
Maya Against Itzas	295	(1)
The Boat	295	(2)
The Soul	297	(1)
Da Boyg	298	(1)
Love	299	(1)
The Motion	300	(1)
The Pavement	301	(2)
A Story	303	(1)
Peograms	304	(1)
The Real	305	(1)
I Believe in You	306	(1)
Red Mallows	307	(1)
The Death of Europe	308	(8)
Going from Battle to Battle	316	(1)
Small Birds, to Agree with the Leaves, Come in the Fall	317	(1)
I, Mencius, Pupil of the Master	318	(3)
O'Ryan	321	(9)
O'Ryan II-15	330	(3)
True Numbers	333	(1)
New Poem	333	(1)
Anecdotes of the Late War	334	(6)
The Bride	340	(2)
The Picture	342	(1)
"He treads on edges of being..."	342	(1)
Sut Lovingood	343	(1)
King's Mountain	343	(11)
The Post Virginal	354	(1)
"As I went in and out I heard pieces..."	355	(2)
De Los Cantares	357	(2)
Evil	359	(3)
The Seven Songs	362	(1)
A Newly Discovered 'Homeric' Hymn	363	(2)
The Whole World	365	(3)
Quail	368	(1)
"Cry pain, & the dogs of yrself devour..."	368	(1)
The Alba	369	(1)
Love I	370	(2)
"The chain of memory is resurrection..."	372	(8)
"Anubis will stare..."	380	(4)
The Lordly and Isolate Satyrs	384	(4)
As the Dead Prey Upon Us	388	(8)
Variations Done for Gerald Van De Wiele	396	(4)
The Perfume!	400	(2)
"The perfume of flowers!..."	402	(1)
"The perfume of flowers!..."	403	(1)
The Encounter	404	(3)
Thoughts of the Time	407	(1)
"Who slays the Spanish sun..."	407	(2)
The Business	409	(1)
Hate	409	(1)
Who	410	(1)
Long Distance	410	(1)
"You know, verse is a lovely thing..."	411	(1)
The Loves of Anat, I	411	(1)
The Librarian	412	(3)
The Writ	415	(2)
The Writ	417	(2)
"I weep, fountain of Jazer"	419	(1)
She Who Hits at Will	420	(1)
Anniversary	421	(2)
The Company of Men	423	(2)
One Word as the Complete Poem	425	(1)
Obit	425	(5)
"Beauty is to lay hold of Love..."	430	(1)
Moonset, Gloucester, December 1, 1957, 1:58 AM	430	(1)
What's Wrong with Pindar	431	(1)
"Without the Season of Structure..."	432	(1)
Just Inside the Vigil of Christmas	432	(1)
The Treatment	433	(1)
"It isn't my word but my mother's..."	433	(1)
Poemless Rhymes for the Times	434	(1)
"With what I got out..."	435	(1)
All Havens Astern	436	(1)
"I just passed a swoony time..."	436	(1)
Of the United States	437	(1)
"tenementy twilightish landscape..."	438	(1)
"I was stretched out on the earth..."	439	(1)
The Year Is a Great Circle or the Year Is a Great Mistake	439	(1)
Measure	440	(1)
The Mind's Notice	440	(1)
Rosy, It Was	441	(1)
A Six Inch Chapter--in Verse	442	(1)
Easter	443	(4)
The Gonfalon Raised Tonight	447	(4)
"Rufus Woodpecker..."	451	(4)
Stone and Flower Series	455	(7)
Memorial Day	462	(1)
I Mean, No	463	(1)
"I hang on by..."	464	(1)
Afica	465	(1)
To Try to Get Down One Citizen as Against Another	466	(1)
"the Flower grows from the roots..."	466	(1)
"The liturgical eighth day..."	467	(1)
"Undazzled, keen, love sits..."	467	(1)
"Sit by the window and refuse..."	468	(1)
Winter Solstice	469	(1)
Christmas	470	(1)
The Song	471	(1)
Being Altogether Literal, & Specific, and Seeking at the Same Time to Be Successfully Ex-plicit	472	(7)
Conversation galante	479	(3)
"the dogwood comes out yellow..."	482	(1)
"right in my eye..."	483	(1)
"This man's weakness is straw..."	483	(1)
"My love is also like..."	484	(1)
Incunabula, 1958	484	(1)
"go make a bridge ..."	485	(1)
"It's not the erotic..."	486	(1)
Every Man His Own Matador; or for That Matter Any Member of the Family	487	(1)
May 20, 1959	487	(1)
The Nerves Are Staves, and When the Tears Come There Is Voice	488	(1)
The Intended Angle of Vision Is from My Kitchen	489	(1)
"the proper soul in the proper body..."	490	(1)
The Distances	491	(2)
"I am so small you can hardly see me..."	493	(1)
"All pink from the bath she slept..."	494	(1)
Assuming the Soul Is a Bitch	494	(2)
"one night Ma lay with Pa..."	496	(1)
Carrying Water to the Youth in Honor of Sappho Jane Harrison & Miss Duncan if She Had	496	(1)
The Dance, of the Grizzly Bear	497	(1)
On All Sides	498	(1)
"On the equator east of my son..."	498	(1)
"The Muse is the `fate' of the poem..."	498	(1)
The Objects	499	(1)
"abt the dead he sd..."	500	(1)
"not a rat-hole, a cat-hole..."	501	(7)
Across Space and Time	508	(1)
Compleynt Blossoms April to July	509	(1)
The Disposition	510	(1)
A Promise	511	(1)
The Will To	512	(1)
I'm With You	512	(1)
Cross-Legged, the Spider and the Web	513	(1)
The Inadequate Orderly Simplification...	514	(1)
The Gleeman Who Flattered Thee	514	(1)
King of the Wood King of the Dead	515	(1)
"Borne down by the inability to lift the heaviness.."	515	(1)
The Lie of 10, or The Concept of Zero	516	(2)
"Mazdaism has overcome the world..."	518	(1)
"In one age or other..."	519	(1)
A 2nd Musical Form, for Dave Young	519	(2)
A Woman's Nipples Is the Rose of the World	521	(1)
The Mathematical Secret, and the Apron	522	(1)
"As though there were no flowing..."	523	(2)
Dylan Thomas, and Now Matthew Mead--As He Himself, `To Edward Thomas'	525	(2)
The Yellow of the Mask	527	(1)
The Hustings	528	(4)
The Hustings	532	(4)
"Pente cost..."	536	(1)
When One Age Goes with It Suddenly Its Errors Evaporate	537	(1)
"Sin is inferiority..."	538	(1)
May 31, 1961	539	(1)
The Allegory of Wealth	540	(1)
There Is No River Which Is Called Lethe	540	(2)
The Red Fish-of-Bones	542	(3)
The Binnacle	545	(1)
To Empty the Mind	546	(2)
What Had to Go	548	(2)
How Things Change	550	(1)
The Americans	551	(1)
The Americans	552	(1)
The Snow	552	(1)
"17th century men who founded this land..."	553	(2)
Examples--for Richard Bridgeman	555	(1)
On the Shore	556	(1)
Hymn to Proserpine	556	(2)
Shang Dynasty Oracle Bone 2 Say	558	(1)
"some partial cloudiness will flow locally..."	558	(1)
To a Poet Who Read in Gloucester Before the Cape Ann Historical Literary and Scientific Society	559	(1)
In an Automotive Store	560	(2)
"It is a nation of nothing but poetry..."	562	(1)
"in Wiro language..."	563	(4)
"Shut in kept off..."	567	(2)
"there they were..."	569	(1)
"I saw, from under Him..."	570	(1)
Ferrini--I	571	(11)
"As the shield goddess, Mycenae..."	582	(2)
"Snow White was always waiting..."	584	(1)
"I had had a beetle..."	585	(1)
"I met my Angel last night..."	586	(2)
"Love is the talk..."	588	(1)
"His house in the branches..."	588	(1)
A Part of the Series on the Paths	589	(1)
"The personality and dourness of winter..."	590	(1)
For Mac Hammond	590	(1)
"--the End of the World is the Turn-About..."	591	(1)
"Color..."	592	(1)
'West'	593	(7)
as of Bozeman	594	(1)
Two Poems	595	(2)
West 4 and 5	597	(2)
West 6	599	(1)
From The Song of Ullikummi	600	(3)
"Memory, Mind, and Will..."	603	(1)
"In celebration of Mitos..."	604	(1)
"the unfinished (raw) hero..."	605	(1)
Buffalo Ode	605	(4)
"My belly sounds like an owl..."	609	(1)
"like a foldout..."	610	(1)
"barley or rye..."	611	(1)
"Grinning monster out side the system..."	612	(2)
"her skin covered me..."	614	(1)
The Lamp	614	(1)
Shenandoah	615	(1)
"will: termite mothers..."	616	(1)
"will: the rat..."	616	(1)
The Grandfather-Father Poem	617	(6)
for my friend	623	(1)
The Drum World	624	(4)
"my apple branch..."	628	(1)
Absolutely Vernal	629	(1)
An 'Enthusiasm'	629	(2)
This Year	631	(1)
"as if Hallam Movius..."	632	(2)
A Scream to the Editor	634	(3)
"He is the Devil..."	637	(1)
"As snow lies on the hill..."	638	(1)
"turn now and rise..."	638	(1)
"So the Norse were neurotic..."	639	(1)
"Indian trinity..."	640	(1)
"Not to permit himself..."	640	(1)
"the Heart is a clock..."	641	(1)
"A big fat fly..."	642	(3)
TEXTUAL NOTES	645	(26)
INDEX	671