The Charles Olson Society will sponsor panels at the Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture, to take place in Louisville, Kentucky, February 16-21. 2026 marks the Centenary of poet Robert Creeley’s birth, and the Charles Olson Society will welcome abstracts pertaining to any aspect of Creeley’s life and work. Creeley was a central poet in the development of Black Mountain Poetry, and along with his life-long friend and companion in verse, Charles Olson, Creeley greatly influenced the development of American poetics after World War II. As he said, “I write to realize the world as one has come to live in it, thus to give testament. I write to move in words, a human delight. I write when no other act is possible.”

To celebrate Creeley’s work, we will explore Creeley’s poetry and writing as it relates to the world, to the feelings of “human delight” that his poetry spurs, and to understand why writing poetry for him was an essential act when no other action was possible.

We will accept abstracts related to any feature of his poetry but will be particularly interested in abstracts related to his influence on experimental American poetry, the development of his works, and/or theoretical approaches that shine new light on the nature of his career in language. How did Creeley’s long career open possibilities for experimental/innovative poetry that remain relevant today? To what extent does his poetry allow us to understand the nature of words, language, and the purposes of writing poetry? We will also be interested in abstracts that examine Creeley’s relationships with other important twentieth century poets, like Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Denise Levertov, Edward Dorn, Hilda Morley, and many others.

Please send a 250 word abstract to Joshua Hoeynck (jsh115@case.edu) and Joseph Pizza (josephpizza@bac.edu) no later than Friday, September 12th. Please include your academic affiliation (if any) and a brief biographical note with your abstract (~100 words).