Olson, Charles (1910-1970), was one of the most influential American poets of his time. In 1948, Olson began teaching at Black Mountain College, an experimental school in Black Mountain, North Carolina. He served as the school’s rector (head) from 1951 to 1956. At the college, Olson taught Robert Creeley, Robert Duncan, and other young writers who became leading poets.
Charles John Olson was born on Dec. 27, 1910, in Worcester, Massachusetts. His chief work was a long cycle (series of poems) called The Maximus Poems. Publication of this complex work began in 1953 and ended in 1975 after his death. In it, Olson used Gloucester, Massachusetts, symbolically to praise what he admired in human life and to attack the greed and commercialism he saw in American culture.
Olson first gained recognition with Call Me Ishmael (1947), a critical study of the American author Herman Melville. Olson’s major poems and critical writings appear in Selected Writings (1966). This collection includes Olson’s well-known essay “Projective Verse” (1950), in which he discussed his extremely complicated style of poetry. He died on Jan. 10, 1970. Olson’s Collected Prose was published in 1997, after his death.
