Distances

by C.P. Foster

Poems by Charles Olson . 16mo pp. 96 Brossura (wrappers) Molto buono (Very Good)

Genres: Poetry

110 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1960

About the author

Hello, and welcome! I’m C. P. Foster, and I write urban fantasy, erotica and romance.

I live in a suburb of the Emerald City, a.k.a. Seattle with my husband and our cat(s). The number of cats varies, but there’s always at least one. I’ve been a pagan for over 25 years, and somewhere along the way Aphrodite claimed me. Or maybe I was hers all along, and just didn’t realize it. I’m also into BDSM, and very proud to be a member of the Center for Sex Positive Culture, an organization that promotes the understanding and acceptance of human sexuality in its many, many forms.

To quote Lucille Ball, “I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than the things I didn’t do.” It’s made my life a long, strange trip packed full of experiences, both good and bad. I hope that as I get older I’ll be brave enough to keep living by that philosophy.

I’ve been writing pretty much ever since I learned my alphabet, but up until now I’ve mostly done it for my own enjoyment. Sharing it with the world is scary, wonderful, validating, intimidating, and I’ll put away my thesaurus now, because you get the idea. At any rate, I’m hooked.

Reviews

[e · Rating 5 out of 5]

I only just bought this volume second-hand (for $5!) less than a week ago, &, tho I've read all these many times over for years now, have already deemed it deserving of permanent residence in my backpack (alongside the Selected Poems volumes of Duncan, Pound, & cummings). It's only a shame this is so terribly out of print because I feel like it's the better introduction to Olson's poetry than the more recent Selected (University of California edition). In any case, it makes for a wonderful (life-long) companion.

[Noah Leben · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awake,

my soul, let the power into the last wrinkle

of being, let none of the threads and rubber of the tires
be left upon the earth. Let even your mother

go. Let there be only paradise

The desperateness is, that the instant
which is also paradise (paradise
is happiness) dissolves

into the next instant, and power
flows to meet the next occurrence

Although I am not sure I am willing to declare any single poem in this volume as rival to the best of, say, Stevens or Yeats—although both The Kingfishers and As The Dead Prey Upon Us would be worthy contenders—what I am willing to declare is that this is perhaps the single finest collection in contemporary American poetry when one considers the consistency of the individual poems, the intellectual sweep on display, the forceful strength of its gnomic declarations, and the attentiveness to rhythm (the balance of various rhythms). Pound and Williams are of course directly cited as a reference but I hear Eliot (in The Kingfishers in particular, even if Olson disavowed his influence) and Oppen as well (although Olson was familiar with Oppen, he claims not to have read his work: convergent evolution?). What Olson is able to achieve in these poems is an incredible union of prose rhythm and verse rhythm (exalting both while never dwelling in the morass of either), in conjunction with that rare third vatic register that he perhaps inherited from Melville (although maybe it is best to not dwell too deeply on specific literary inheritances, lest one discount the singular man that is the poet at hand, the flourishings unique in him). Olson's poems at their finest have a sense of universal declaration and a truth-value which can only be found in the finest works of art. The ways in which Olson is able to distill his erudition and fragment his sources through the prism of his being is astounding; one could read this collection a lifetime through and still find hidden resonances.

[Nora · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked up C.O.'s "The Distances" in a used bookshop in LA. After doing a bunch of research on Black Mountain I figured I owed him another chance. I'd read him in undergrad when I took part in a group independent study course where we read literary magazines from 1910-1996. (Course was so awesome; we read original source material that had been archived). I was tolerant but nonplussed by Olson back then, whereas I really jammed out to his cohorts Creeley, Duncan, Corman. So I pulled C.O. off the shelf in LA and was immediately drawn in by the first poem "The Kingfishers". It's time to give the big guy another chance. I think I could learn something from him about writing in this particular moment.

[Allyssa · Rating 4 out of 5]

from paul

[David Garza · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of typical Charles Olson poems, which means this is a great collection. I might have given this 4.5 stars.

[j · Rating 5 out of 5]

always a pleasure to revisit