June 2, 2005

Robert Creeley, On Charles Olson

"So he is able to read his own life as text rather than reference. One
time at Black Mountain he said to me, "I need a college to think with,"
meaning, I understood, that he wanted the multiplicity of instance, all
particular and active, not the discrete or isolating possibilities of a
chosen few. "Come into the world," he said, "Take a big bite." It was
poetry that could move with the necessary syntax and speed, to 'be here'
coincident with recognition, a locating act."

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