Darryl and Goliath

It is true that Creeley and Ginsberg were the Andrew Clark and Claire Standish to the Meat School's various John Benders in the Breakfast Club that was New American Poetry, but when you get down to it Charles Olson was the Richard Vernon assigned all the poets their essays (see A Bibliography on America for Ed Dorn for example).  Olson was the headliner of the NAP anthology.  Ginsberg was the King of May, but Olson was the King of the Hill.  You saw it in the late issues of Kulchur and you see it in Ole; you cannot resist throwing a few rocks at Goliath.

levy, Darryl not David, took his shot in The Godzilla Issue.  This would seem somewhat ridiculous, or an example of delusion of grandeur, but, by 1967, levy, even in his mid-20s, had a major reputation in Midwest mimeo.  If Buk was Falstaff, larger than life and completely full of it, then levy was being groomed to be Prince Hal.  So it makes sense that levy of all poets would stand up to Maximus and give it his best shot in true levy fashion.

THE MAXIMUS POEMS -- Charles Olson, $2.50, Jargon-Cornith Books, c/o Eighth Street Book Shop, 17 W. 8 St., New York City, N.Y. 1001.

"It must come to pass that one cannot leave a work of art be it literature, painting or music, without having undergone some sort of inner transformation.  If this does not take place, the work has failed of its purpose so far as the beholder is concerned."
                                                                --Frederic Spiegelberg

If Spiegelberg's statement is correct then the above works (& the following) have certainly succeeded as works of art.  They have all moved me from slight nausea to severe cases of the dry heaves & from boredom to paralyzed apathy . . . the church built around minor concrete poet Charles Olson is totally out of proportion.  Olson worshippers will find that any literate psychopathotic can write as coherent as Olson & even cum up with sum gud lines on occasion. . .While I have trouble paying my grocery bill Olson gets paid to re-rite someone elses?  Charlie I think you lost yr bus ticket aft "call me a schmuck" & "the magyar letters."

JB