Happy birthday, Charles Olson!
Charles Olson was a poet of national importance, but in many ways he was a local bard, a representative of his hometown, Gloucester, MA. In honor of the centennial of his birth, Gloucester is throwing a nice shindig. The organizers are planning a fête filled with readings and performances.
Among the writers appearing during the celebration will be Diane di Prima, poet laureate of San Francisco, and Michael Rumaker, both of whom studied with Olson at the influential Black Mountain School in the early 1950s. Other readings will include Anastas himself, Ammiel Alcalay, Gerrit Lansing, Charles Stein, Ed Sanders and many others. Henry Ferrini will read his children’s book based on Olson, “Little Charlie Goes to Gloucester,” there will be accompanying exhibitions at the Sawyer Free Library and the Cape Ann Museum, and other activities including a “Maximus Walk” to landmarks written about in the poems, a presentation of Olson’s dance play “Apollonius of Tyana” (see related story), and a screening of Ferrini’s documentary about the poet, “Polis is This.”