Charles Olson and Influence (12/15/12; ALA Boston: 5/23-26/2013)

full name / name of organization: 
Gary Grieve-Carlson / The Charles Olson Society
contact email: 

Charles Olson's influence on avant-garde poetry began with the publication of "Projective Verse," the first volumes of "The Maximus Poems," and Don Allen's "The New American Poetry." One thinks of Creeley, Dorn, Baraka, Ginsberg, Eshleman, Howe, Waldman, and others who have acknowledged that influence, but it also shows up where one doesn't expect it (in a poet like Amy Clampitt, for example). This panel asks whether Olson's influence is now merely historical, or whether it persists. If it is historical, can we define its parameters? If it has ended, why has it ended? If it persists, how does it persist? In other words, does Olson matter for contemporary poetry? Please send one-page proposals by 12/15/2012 to Gary Grieve-Carlson at grieveca@lvc.edu. American Literature Association,May 23-26, 2013, Boston.