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Charles Olson Quotes

Charles Olson was a second generation modern American poet who was a link between earlier figures such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and the New American poets, which includes the New York School, the Black Mountain School, the Beat poets, and the San Francisco Renaissance. Consequently, many postmodern groups, such as the poets of the language school, include Olson as a primary and precedent figure. He described himself not so much as a poet or writer but as "an archeologist of morning." Wikipedia  

✵ 27. December 1910 – 10. January 1970
Charles Olson photo
Charles Olson: 9   quotes 0   likes

Famous Charles Olson Quotes

“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”

Charles Olson

Part I, 4
The Kingfishers (1950)

“And the too strong grasping of it,
when it is pressed together and condensed,
loses it This very thing you are”

Charles Olson

Part I, 4
The Kingfishers (1950)
Context: 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 it This very thing you are

“Whatever you have to say, leave
The roots on, let them
Dangle

And the dirt

Just to make clear
Where they come from.”

Charles Olson

“What does not change / is the will to change”

Charles Olson

Part I, 1
The Kingfishers (1950)

“And all now is war
Where so lately there was peace,
and the sweet brotherhood, the use
of tilled fields.”

Charles Olson

Part I, 3
The Kingfishers (1950)

“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.””

Charles Olson

Part I, 2
The Kingfishers (1950)

“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.”

Charles Olson

Part I, 2
The Kingfishers (1950)

“with what violence benevolence is bought
what cost in gesture justice brings
what wrongs domestic rights involve
what stalks
this silence”

Charles Olson

Part II
The Kingfishers (1950)

“When the attentions change / the jungle
leaps in even the stones are split
they rive”

Charles Olson

Part I, 3
The Kingfishers (1950)

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