Mysticism and Spirituality in Post-1945 Poetics
The Charles Olson Society will sponsor a session at the annual Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture since 1900, to be held February 24-26, 2022. We seek abstracts concerning the relationship between avant-garde American poetics and spirituality, religion, and/or other mystical influences. The connection between experimental verse and spiritual traditions relates directly to Charles Olson’s poetry and to the poetry of many other important post-1945 figures. While Olson’s early poetry is often lauded for its materialist concerns, his later poetics has, at times, been dismissed for what poet Jack Clarke once called “the kook strain,” a line of thinking that grew increasingly esoteric, mystical, and gnostic.