Bringing Charles Olson to life

A modernist American poet who made Gloucester his home will be celebrated at two weekends of events designed to reach out to Cape Ann residents so they can get to know a man who still influences writers around the globe.

"This is not an academic conference," said Peter Anastas, one of the organizers of Gloucester's planned nine-day Charles Olson Centennial celebration that begins next weekend. "It's a celebration of Olson's legacy.

"We want people to understand what his love for Gloucester was, and to see how he looked at Gloucester," Anastas said. "He wrote about the city and we want people to experience Gloucester through Olson's eyes."

The centennial week's events, which run from Oct. 2-10, offer a variety of activities, from readings of Olson's work, an award-winning documentary film, a dance performance, panel discussions and more.

There will be people coming from around the country and the world to join in the events created in the shadow of Olson's centennial; the acclaimed poet lived from 1910 to 1970.

Diane di Prima, poet laureate of San Francisco, will be the featured reader at "Olson 100."

Anastas, a writer and founding president of the Charles Olson Society in 1995, said the poet continues to have an impact on today's writers, particularly young poets.

"In his life he was a charismatic figure and a great teacher but he also opened the door to a completely new way of writing poetry," Anastas said. "It's not a poetry based on rhyme and meter, but on breath. It's almost as if the making of poetry were a bodily function, not just an intellectual function. His essay, 'Projective Verse,' was a manifesto of a new American poetry and it still has relevance for writers today."

Michael Rumaker, a student of Olson's when he taught at Black Mountain College, applauded the organizers.

"The immensity of Charles is genius," said Rumaker, who graduated in 1955, a year before the North Carolina college closed. "When I'm asked a question about it, it's sort of staggering that I don't know where to begin,"

Rumaker shared a quote of Gloucester filmmaker Henry Ferrini, who made the Olson documentary, when the two were talking about the poet.

"Henry and I were talking about his mind, and how incredibly fast it was and what his cranium contained," said Rumaker. "Henry came up with a remark that Olson's brain was the first human computer. It was amazing how much he knew."

It seems that anyone who met or became friends with Olson walked away with a certain astonishment.

But Olson also had a grand physical nature, standing at 6-foot-8, making him a man hard to forget.

Olson was trained as a historian at Harvard University in the 1930s. A decade later, he started writing "The Maximus Poems," his epic poem about Gloucester, which was first published in 1952 with two volumes.

In the 1970s, after his death, the University of California published the definitive edition.

Rumaker, a writer from Nyack, N.Y., took several classes with Olson during his three years at the experimental college.

"He taught lots of classes that included books, lots of books, especially Herman Melville and others. You got to be quite literate in his class and we talked a lot about American writers and world writers," he said.

"He was really magical, very exuberant and very funny and full of life," Rumaker said. "He was the man I needed to learn from. He brought writing to a real central part of importance at Black Mountain, among the many things that were offered there."

Rumaker, who wrote a book "Black Mountain Days," will give a reading and take part in a panel discussion during the celebration.

"When I went to Black Mountain in the 1950s, I was pretty raw cabbage," he recalled. "I owe so much to him. With him you had to prove yourself and put yourself to the test. He was challenging. He wanted you to find out who the heck you were and what you had to offer and not to go along just to go along. If you handed in a piece of writing that he didn't think was honest, he would really let you have it."

But those trials brought Rumaker, and many others, to a better understanding of both the craft of writing and what each individual author brought to his or her work.

"We hope to bring Olson alive for the people here," said Anastas. "We are really doing this for the residents of Cape Ann, not for scholars. We want this to be a chance for people to experience Olson and Olson's love for Gloucester."

For more information about celebration, visit http://www.Olson100.blogspot.com.

Olson 100

Highlights of the early events planned for Olson 100, a centennial celebration of poet Charles Olson (1910-1970).

Oct. 1 and 7 — Charles Olson Study Group at 7 p.m. at The Bookstore at 61 Main St. in Gloucester, led by Peter Anastas and James Cook.

Oct. 4 to 10 — Special exhibition of rare, inscribed, and out-of-print books, letters, magazines and broadsides by Olson, sponsored by the Gloucester Lyceum and Sawyer Free Library at 2 Dale Ave.

Oct. 2 and 3 — Contemporary art installation, "The Man Who Loved Gloucester" by Susan Erony, along with "The Big O," a photographic tribute to Olson, by Paul Cary Goldberg, Saturday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Sunday, 1 to 4 p.m. at the White-Ellery House, 245 Washington St.

Oct. 3 — "Charles Olson: Letters Home," a book signing, reading and reception with the book's editor, David Rich, 4 to 6 p.m. at the Cape Ann Museum, 27 Pleasant St.

Oct. 3 — Ammiel Alcalay, an Olson scholar, will read from his book "Islanders" at 7 p.m. at The Bookstore of Gloucester, 61 Main St.

Oct. 4 — "The Unusual Suspects": Schuyler Hoffman, Kent Bowker, James and Amanda Cook, and others will read their work at 7 p.m. at the Gloucester Writers Center, former home of poet Vincent Ferrini at 126 Main St., in East Gloucester.

Oct. 5 — Peter Anastas reads from his newly completed memoir and from a forthcoming novel, both set in Gloucester; David Rich reads the fiction of Jonathan Bayliss. 7 p.m., Sawyer Free Library.

Events continue through Sunday, Oct. 10.

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