Charles olson olson charles vol 2 essay

In January 1964, Kaiser was killed by a drunk driver in a head-on automobile accident, although a grieving Olson incorrectly theorized her death as a potential suicide because of her dissatisfaction with her life in the Buffalo area. Her death precipitated Olson into an existential mixture of extreme isolation, romantic longing, and frenzied work.

Olson's reputation rests in the main on his complex, sometimes difficult poems such as "The Kingfishers", "In Cold Hell, in Thicket", and The Maximus Poems, work that tends to explore social, historical, and political concerns.

Early writings. In Projective Verse (1950), Olson called for a poetic meter based on the poet's breathing and an open construction based on sound and the linking of perceptions rather than syntax and logic. He favored metre not based on syllable, stress, foot or line but using only the unit of the breath.

His second collection, The Distances, was published in 1960. Olson's reputation rests in the main on his complex, sometimes difficult poems such as "The Kingfishers", "In Cold Hell, in Thicket", and The Maximus Poems, work that tends to explore social, historical, and political concerns.