Charles Olson

thumb| What does not change / is the will to change Charles Olson (December 27, 1910 – January 10, 1970) was an influential American poet, credited as one of the thinkers who coined the term postmodern. Quotes The Kingfishers (1950) thumb|The legends are legends. thumb|Not one death but many, not accumulation but change, the feed-back proves, the feed-back is the law thumb| Around an appearance, one common model, we grow up many. thumb| The message is a discrete or continuous sequence of measurable events distributed in time As published in The Collected Poems of Charles Olson (1987), edited by George F. Butterick · Full text online, at the Poetry Foundation What does not change / is the will to change Part I, 1 When I saw him, he was at the door, but it did not matter, he was already sliding along the wall of the night, losing himself in some crack of the ruins. That it should have been he who said, “The kingfishers! who cares for their feathers now?” His last words had been, “The pool is slime.” Part I, 2 The legends are legends. Dead, hung up indoors, the kingfisher will not indicate a favoring wind, or avert the thunderbolt. Nor, by its nesting, still the waters, with the new year, for seven days. It is true, it does nest with the opening year, but not on the waters. Part I, 2 And all now is war Where so lately there was peace, and the sweet brotherhood, the use of tilled fields. Part I, 3 When the attentions change / the jungle leaps in     even the stones are split         they rive Part I, 3 Not one death but many, not accumulation but change, the feed-back proves, the feed-back is the law Into the same river no man steps twice When fire dies air dies No one remains, nor is, one Around an appearance, one common model, we grow up many. Else how is it, if we remain the same, we take pleasure now in what we did not take pleasure before? love contrary objects? admire and / or find fault? use other words, feel other passions, have nor figure, appearance, disposition, tissue the same? To be in different states without a change is not a possibility Part I, 4 We can be precise. The factors are in the animal and / or the machine the factors are communication and / or control, both involve the message. And what is the message? The message is a discrete or continuous sequence of measurable events distributed in time is the birth of the air, is the birth of water, is a state between the origin and the end, between birth and the beginning of another fetid nest is change, presents no more than itself And the too strong grasping of it, when it is pressed together and condensed, loses itThis very thing you are Part I, 4 with what violence benevolence is bought what cost in gesture justice brings what wrongs domestic rights involve what stalks this silence Part II Quotes about Charles Olson He (Bob Creeley) introduced me to Charles Olson, Allen Ginsberg-and Ginsberg has been a major model of mine. Olson has been a major model. Paula Gunn Allen Interview in Survival This Way: Interviews with American Indian Poets by Joseph Bruchac (1987) In the early 1960s Denise Levertov introduced me to the work of Creeley, Duncan, and Olson. Also, of course, Williams, though I'd read him a bit before. But my own life, also, was pushing me into kinds of poetry I hadn't written before. Over the years, I was to draw in my own way on their (very different) poetics, but more on the poetry itself. The title and epigraph of The Will to Change are from Olson's "The Kingfishers." Adrienne Rich Arts of the Possible (2001) External links Olson Biography, University of Connecticut Libraries Olson profile at Academy of American Poets Profile at Poetry Foundation Category:1910 births Category:1970 deaths Category:Poets from Massachusetts Category:Beat Generation writers