Arlo Haskell

Charles Olson measured 6’8″ tall and like many mammals of large appetite he died young, at 59. His life revolved around the history of the small coastal town of Gloucester, Massachusetts, and its present, where he was born and lived until his liver failed. Vulcan was a god of fire in its destructive and beneficial iterations. Apollo was a god of fire too, but his fire was the sun that gives light and life. Or so I gather. What I love in reading Charles Olson has never been the grasp of history evidenced by the Maximus poems and ‘on which his reputation rests.’ Rather it’s the scraps and asides George Butterick ordered chronologically in the 600+-page Collected. Lines like the plaintive ‘Letsuzstayawayfromparades’ from “O’Ryan 11-15″ pretty much nail it down: C.O. adrift along the streets along the edge and under the night, subject to emotions and what they have in [...]