Selected Poems

by Olson, Charles; Creeley, Robert

• ISBN13: 9780520212329
• ISBN10: 0520212320
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-11-01
• Publisher: Univ of California Pr

Summary

"I have assumed a great deal in the selection of the poems from such a large and various number, making them a discourse unavoidably my own as well as any Olson himself might have chosen to offer. I had finally no advice but the long held habit of our using one another, during his life, to act as a measure, a bearing, an unabashed response to what either might write or say."--Robert Creeley A seminal figure in post-World War II literature, Charles Olson has helped define the postmodern sensibility. His poetry embraces themes of empowering love, political responsibility, the wisdom of dreams, the intellect as a unit of energy, the restoration of the archaic, and the transformation of consciousness--all carried in a voice both intimate and grand, American and timeless, impassioned and coolly demanding. In this selection of some 70 poems, Robert Creeley has sought to present a personal reading of Charles Olson's decisive and inimitable work--"unequivocal instances of his genius"--over the many years of their friendship.

Table of Contents

Preface	x
I [from COLLECTED POEMS]	3	(98)
Move Over	3	(1)
La Chute	4	(1)
The Kingfishers	5	(8)
At Yorktown	13	(2)
In Cold Hell, in Thicket	15	(7)
For Sappho, Back	22	(4)
The Moon Is the Number 18	26	(2)
To Gerhardt, There, Among Europe's Things of Which He Has Written Us in His "Brief an Creeley und Olson"	28	(12)
The Ring of	40	(2)
An Ode on Nativity	42	(5)
The Thing Was Moving	47	(4)
Merce of Egypt	51	(3)
The Death of Europe	54	(9)
A Newly Discovered `Homeric' Hymn	63	(2)
"The chain of memory is resurrection..."	65	(7)
As the Dead Prey Upon Us	72	(9)
Variations Done for Gerald Van De Wiele	81	(5)
The Librarian	86	(3)
Moonset, Gloucester, December 1, 1957, 1:58 AM	89	(1)
The Song	90	(1)
The Distances	91	(3)
Crossed-Legged, the Spider and the Web	94	(1)
May 31, 1961	95	(1)
The Lamp	96	(1)
"As snow lies on the hill..."	97	(1)
"the Heart is a clock..."	98	(3)
II [from THE MAXIMUS POEMS]	101	(122)
Maximus, to himself	101	(3)
The Twist	104	(6)
a Plantation a beginning	110	(4)
Maximus, to Gloucester	114	(3)
Some Good News	117	(11)
John Burke	128	(4)
April Today Main Street	132	(7)
MAXIMUS, FROM DOGTOWN--I	139	(8)
Maximus to Gloucester, Letter 27 [withheld]	147	(3)
Maximus Letter # whatever	150	(2)
Maximus, at the Harbor	152	(3)
A Later Note on Letter # 15	155	(1)
CHRONICLES	156	(3)
THE GULF OF MAINE	159	(4)
"And now let all the ships come in ..."	163	(1)
" `at the boundary of the mighty world'..."	164	(5)
"I looked up and saw..."	169	(1)
"having descried the nation..."	170	(1)
"Main Street is deserted..."	171	(4)
"Imbued with the light..."	175	(1)
West Gloucester	176	(2)
Stevens song	178	(7)
Maximus to himself June 1964	185	(1)
COLE'S ISLAND	186	(3)
Maximus, in Gloucester Sunday, LXV	189	(2)
"Swimming through the air, in schools upon the highways..."	191	(1)
Maximus of Gloucester	192	(1)
"I have been an ability--a machine..."	193	(7)
"Bottled up for days..."	200	(1)
Got me home, the light snow gives the air, falling	201	(2)
"When do poppies bloom..."	203	(1)
"The hour of evening..."	204	(5)
"The boats' lights in the dawn now going so swiftly..."	209	(3)
"Out of the light of Heaven..."	212	(1)
Hotel Steinplatz, Berlin, December 25 (1966)	213	(2)
Celestial evening, October 1967	215	(2)
The Telesphere	217	(1)
"Added to making a Republic..."	218	(1)
"Wholly absorbed..."	219	(1)
"I live underneath the light of day..."	220	(1)
"the Blow is Creation..."	221	(2)
Index of First Lines	223