Maximus & Minimus

One of the most powerful aspects of Projective Verse is the transformation of text through reading. Olson's emphasis, in the 1950 essay that named his (& Creeley's) method, was on breath. Always breath, so that space on the page equals time in the reading:

Because breath allows all the speech-force of language back in (speech is the "solid" of verse, is the secret of a poem's energy), because, now, a poem has, by speech, solidity, everything in it can now be treated as solids, objects, things; and, though insisting upon the absolute difference of the reality of verse from that other dispersed and distributed thing, yet each of these elements of a poem can be allowed to have the play of their separate energies and can be allowed, once the poem is well composed, to keep, as those other objects do, their proper confusions.

This is magnificent. Space becomes Time in the translation of text to speech, and with Creeley, this aspect is beautifully clear. Take this reading of "The Dishonest Mailmen," an early poem that never fails to astound me:

They are taking all my letters, and they put them into a fire.

I see the flames, etc.

But do not care, etc.

They burn everything I have, or what little
I have. I don't care, etc.

The poem supreme, addressed to
emptiness - this is the courage

necessary. This is something
quite different.

All the space is there in his reading. There was a time when hesitation at enjambment would frustrate me, as it interrupted the continuity of the text & resulted in my distraction from content & a subsequent focus on form. As I've developed as a reader & writer, however, it's become quite obvious that FORM, as Creeley sd, IS NEVER MORE THAN AN EXTENSION OF CONTENT, & those hesitations are just as vital to an understanding of a poem as is the close analysis of a single word & its etymological roots. When I consider Creeley's body of work as a whole, the hesitation at enjambment is not only important, it's necessary. Those forced silences are what his poems are struggling against, the voice against the void. His reading style, even toward the end of his life, is beautifully indicative of that tension.

Olson, however, is a reader in the performative vein. If Creeley whispers, Olson shouts (to borrow a metaphor from a comparison once drawn between my work and that of another, v. talented writer). They're fighting against the same void, but their delivery is fantastically different. Here, Olson reads "The Librarian," an exquisite poem, the text of which I won't quote here, considering the length of the piece:



Listen to that voice! Watch those gestures! Olson is a whiskey-swilling force to be reckoned with, a giant of poetry with Things to Say & a voice with which to say them. But, just as we saw with Creeley, rhythm & breath are paramount to his reading style. There are moments in so many Olson readings where he stops the poem, mid-line, to begin again, with a better voice, clearer breath, stricter rhythm. The loyalty to the text is clear, and what makes Olson's style so captivating is the palpable strength of his connection to the language & the shape it takes as it leaves his body. He isn't just reading that poem. He's feeling it, along with all of the source tensions that gave birth to it. Speech, as he said, gives verse its solidity. Nowhere is verse more solid than in an Olson reading.

[Hit the UPenn archives for audio files of both Olson & Creeley reading their work, including the poems cited here.]