The Earth is in the geography of our being.

Charles Olson

Polis is This: Charles Olson and the Persistence of Place – a very good film about Olson, can now be viewed on-line. Olson seems to be terribly unfashionable at the moment; though, in my opinion, he has never been more relevant. I recently read that Kenneth Rexroth called him "deaf," meaning he lacked a poet's ear – his line is clumsy and without beauty of sound – which is true enough but shows a lack of understanding of Olson's intentions, which were not aesthetic at all, but all about immediacy of engagement: biting into life and letting life bite into you before your senses have time to register or the mind has time to reflect.