ISSUE  1   2   3   4

5 

 6     SUBMIT

Charles Olson (1910-1970) is arguably the greatest American poet of the second half of the twentieth century. Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, the son of a letter carrier, Olson was educated at Wesleyan and Harvard, where he began his important study of the American writer Herman Melville. His early work on Melville, titled Call Me Ishmael, begins “I take SPACE to be the central fact to man born in America, from Folsom Cave to now. I spell it large because it comes large here. Large, and without mercy.” Olson’s claim of the essential nature of space to the American condition would later lead him to a poetry fully engaged with place, including not only history of place, but geology, archaeology, and more. Space also includes the space of the page, the space within which the poem makes meaning. Olson was engaged, always, with physical fact, and he wrote, shaped, and explored language as if it, too, were a physical fact, which indeed it can be.

The conference, CHARLES OLSON: LANGUAGE AS PHYSICAL FACT, celebrates Olson’s contribution to American poetry and life in several ways, primarily through the work of poets who, in one way or another, and at one distance or another, are indebted to the work of Olson. They will offer readings, contributions to a panel proceeding, and answers to audience questions. A recent film by the filmmaker Henry Ferrini, who has had a long connection to Charles Olson, will also be shown. The film is titled Polis Is This: Charles Olson and the Persistence of Place. Language becomes physical fact in a series of hand-printed fine art broadsides by Chax Press that present the most visual texts from Olson’s masterwork, The Maximus Poems, his poetic exploration of Gloucester, Massachusetts, America, archaeology, values, ethics, and more. These broadsides will be on display at the library of the Poetry Center at the University of Arizona, which is the venue for all events of the conference, and, through providing such venue, becomes a cosponsor of the conference.

The primary sponsor, however, is CHAX PRESS, an independent small press active in poetry and the book arts, that was founded in Tucson, Arizona in 1984, and since that date has published more than 80 books in trade and fine art editions while also presenting a variety of events and programs to communities in Tucson as well as throughout the nation, and beyond.

Chax Press wishes to thank, for primary funding for this event, the Arizona Commission on the Arts and its “American Masterworks” program. Support from the Commission includes funds from the State of Arizona and from the National Endowment for the Arts. Chax Press also acknowledges funding from the Tucson Pima Arts Council. In addition, many individuals have made donations to support this conference, and we are most grateful to them.

- Charles Alexander