Collected Prose

"Collected Prose will introduce a new generation of readers to a central modernist and postmodernist thinker in American letters. For the energy of the avant-garde literary project at midcentury, Olson is it. No one else has the excitement or range."—Robert Hass

"At last we have between two covers some of the most compelling theorizing in postmodern poetics and American Studies ever produced, from one of the defining figures in postwar American poetry. This is that rarest of books, a must-read for poets and scholars alike."—Alan Golding

Library Journal

Poet and critic Olson wrote in a muscular style, one as individualistic as it is exasperating. Yet his writings changed the way literature is written and read: his essay "Projective Verse" gives a name to the poetry written by cummings, Pound, Williams, and other Moderns, and his book Call Me Ishmael tells more about the composition of Moby-Dick than any study before or since. That work and three other Olsen books, along with nine uncollected essays and five previously unpublished pieces, are brought together here by Allen, editor of the influential New American Poetry, 1945-1960, and Friedlander, a poet and doctoral candidate (SUNY at Buffalo). This work isn't easy reading, but for any serious student of the last 150 years of American letters, it is essential.David Kirby, Florida State Univ., Tallahassee

Donald Allen was a longtime friend, editor, and publisher of Charles Olson. He has also edited The New American Poetry, 1945-1960, The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara, and the writings of Lew Welch. He is currently CEO of Grey Fox Press in San Francisco. Benjamin Friedlander is the author of several books of poetry and editor of Area Lights Heights: Writings 1954-1989 by Larry Eigner. He is currently a doctoral candidate at the State University of New York, Buffalo. Robert Creeley is Samuel P. Capen Professor of Poetry and the Humanities at the State University of New York, Buffalo.