Poets House Celebrates Charles Olson
In celebration of the upcoming 100th anniversary of Charles Olson’s birth, Poets House is currently hosting an exhibit composed of prints of Olson’s poems and a large selection of his books.
Charles Olson was a Herculean figure in mid-century, American poetry. Immense in stature, wide-scoped, dauntless, “and possessed of an alphabet / before the Greeks”, Olson wielded all of the data that fell within his vast reach to architect his poetry. As his essay, “Projective Verse”, explained, his poems proceeded from his breath, becoming an effect of the body. Here collected are a number of rare Olsonic texts; view their typography and understand what it meant to compose by field.
- Joseph Fritsch, Anna Hezel, and Jon Picco
