Charles Olson and Jack Spicer: A Comparative Study of the Poetics of the Outside

Charles Olson and Jack Spicer pioneered innovative poetic techniques and engineered novel theoretical perspectives in direct opposition to the dominate intellectual paradigms of midcentury North American academia, the reverberations of which can still be felt in contemporary poetics today. Utilizing language against itself and employing a poetics situated in relation to bodily and aural perception, rather than the ocular model of artistic expression of the Western tradition, Olson and Spicer, respectively, theorize a poetics of the Outside through which the poet is able to compose verse in such a way as to work against the self and thereby gain access to the always-already polyvocality inherent in all language. Through their respective praxes, which are rooted in mutual interests in Mythos and Logos, Olson and Spicer turned their attentions to the polis as the site upon which a living poetry might be implemented, employing a poetics of place which see them take on the role of ethnographers of the imaginary. Although it can be argued that both poets failed in this regard, Spicer reminds us that all art entails failure, while Olson marches onward into the nuclear age, as a paternal figure for science-oriented poetries.

Grantor dc:publisher

State University of New York at Buffalo

Year dc:date.issued

2018

Author dc:creator

• Hathaway, Christopher

Contributors dc:contributor

• Solomon, William
• English

• American literature
• literature

Statement dc:rights

• Users of works found in University at Buffalo Institutional Repository (UBIR) are responsible for identifying and contacting the copyright owner for permission to reuse. University at Buffalo Libraries do not manage rights for copyright-protected works and cannot assist with permissions.
• Copyright retained by author.

Language dc:language

eng

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/10477/78104

OAI record oai:identifier

https://ubir.buffalo.edu/oai/request?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=qdc&identifier=oai%3Aubir.buffalo.edu%3A10477%2F78104