Olson, Charles, 1910-1970

Charles Olson, the leading voice of the Black Mountain poets, was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, and was a notable student at Wesleyan University, where his groundbreaking work on Herman Melville evolved into the highly praised monograph, Call Me Ishmael. Inspired by Franklin Roosevelt, Olson worked his way up through the Democratic Party, but quit after Roosevelt's death, and began a brilliant career as a writer and educator. His manifesto, Projective Verse, influenced a generation of poets with its thesis that traditional verse was artificial; Olson's own poetry was widely praised, and he is seen as the successor of Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams in promoting modern verse.

Charles Olson was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, on 27 December 1910, to Karl Joseph and Mary Hines Olson. He attended Wesleyan University where he received a B.A. in 1932 and a M.A. in 1933. He continued his graduate studies at Harvard University from 1936 to 1938. His daughter Katherine was born during his first marriage, to Constance Wilcock. His second marriage, to Elizabeth Kaiser, produced a son, Charles Peter. Elizabeth, or Betty as she was known to her friends, died tragically in a car accident in March 1964. Charles Olson received several prestigious awards during his long career, including two Guggenheim Fellowships, in 1939 and 1948; a Wenner-Gren Foundation grant in 1952; a Longview Foundation award for The Maximus Poems in 1961; and an Oscar Blumenthal Prize (Poetry magazine), 1965. Charles Olson died from cancer on 10 January 1970.

In 1960, Charles Olson's The Maximus Poems was published by the Jargon Society in conjuction with Corinth Books.

In 1960, Charles Olson's "The Maximus Poems" was published by the Jargon Society in conjuction with Corinth Books.

Poet, theorist, and teacher and rector at Black Mountain College, Black Mountain, N.C.