SUNY Buffalo hosted a conference in honor of Charles Olson’s 100th year this weekend. The poster is attached below. The event began on Thursday with a reading by poet and publisher Tom Raworth, who gave a reading at our conference on the poetry of the 1970s. A look at the program shows a number of intriguing presentations by poets, editors, and scholars–and many who are some combination of the above. Another intriguing event was a five hour “marathon” reading of The Maximus Poems on Saturday.
Several NPF alumni presented at the conference:
Kaplan Harris, who recently contributed to Paideuma 36, presented on the Olson-Creely correspondence. He is currently editing the forthcoming Selected Letters of Robert Creely. Here is a link to a preview of the forthcoming book in Jacket. He also presented at our Poetry of the 1970s conference.
Don Byrd is another Paideuma alum who presented at the Olson conference. His contribution to Paideuma an issue from farther back–he wrote in the Louis Zukofsky memorial issue, back in 1978. He also contributed to Sagetrieb, in 1985. He has also presented at our 1940s conference. He will be presenting on Olson’s views of verse as “essential.”
Michael Boughn has contributed three articles to Sagetrieb–two on H.D. and one on William Carlos Williams. He presented on poetics as transformation. He is currently editing Robert Duncan’s H.D. Book–a project that this blogger is excited to see come to fruition. The version floating around the internet is a real pain.
Our own Carla Billitteri also presented at the conference, on “Diversional Events: Singularity and Multiplicity in Olson’s Poetics.”
National Poetry Foundation 