Olson's Space

Yes, Olson is yelling. But it is about the "PROJECTIVE", the "projectile", the "percussive", and the "prospective." He does often say nothing. And when he does say something, he sure goes about it funny. For all his talk of breath and his own hot air, I do still have to appreciate the material points he makes and the discussion he's opened up. I mean, we liked reading O'Hara didn't we.

We all learned from Lear, nothing does yield something. Despite this knowledge, in the day it's often easier to ignore the productive qualities of "empty" space. Olson voices a defense of space, even the "empty," the negative. It seemed to me, he almost feels that by respecting the space of the marked and the "empty" he might not create a transcendent order, but at least create some physical order of meaning that is other than him, larger than him, and with the capability to impinge on him. These poets speaking of channelling words, hoping they are speaking another voice that is greater, they seem to be after this dictate. For all his yelling, he seems to be after humility, even if it must be forced.

I really like the idea that physical space can provide this dictate, the idea that syntax and poems might replicate large forms that we might fling ourselves against and push off of, that space might create an order I can follow. It's an idea I'd like to work with in my chapbook, the notion of bearing witness in a poem. Be it form's witness of content, the poem's witness of the author, the poem's witness of the reader, or the reader's witness of the author.