Charles Olson (December 27, 1910 – January 10, 1970) was an influential American poet, credited as one of the thinkers who coined the term postmodern.
Quotes
The Kingfishers (1950)
- As published in The Collected Poems of Charles Olson (1987), edited by George F. Butterick · Full text online, at the Poetry Foundation
- When I saw him, he was at the door, but it did not matter,
he was already sliding along the wall of the night, losing himself
in some crack of the ruins. That it should have been he who said, “The kingfishers!
who cares
for their feathers
now?”His last words had been, “The pool is slime.”
- Part I, 2
- The legends are
legends. Dead, hung up indoors, the kingfisher
will not indicate a favoring wind,
or avert the thunderbolt. Nor, by its nesting,
still the waters, with the new year, for seven days.
It is true, it does nest with the opening year, but not on the waters.- Part I, 2
- And all now is war
Where so lately there was peace,
and the sweet brotherhood, the use
of tilled fields.- Part I, 3
- When the attentions change / the jungle
leaps in even the stones are split
they rive- Part I, 3
- Around an appearance, one common model, we grow up
many. Else how is it,
if we remain the same,
we take pleasure now
in what we did not take pleasure before? love
contrary objects? admire and / or find fault? use
other words, feel other passions, have
nor figure, appearance, disposition, tissue
the same?- To be in different states without a change
is not a possibility
- To be in different states without a change
- Part I, 4
- We can be precise. The factors are
in the animal and / or the machine the factors are
communication and / or control, both involve
the message. And what is the message? The message is
a discrete or continuous sequence of measurable events distributed in timeis the birth of the air, is
the birth of water, is
a state between
the origin and
the end, between
birth and the beginning of
another fetid nestis change, presents
no more than itselfAnd the too strong grasping of it,
when it is pressed together and condensed,
loses itThis very thing you are
- Part I, 4
- with what violence benevolence is bought
what cost in gesture justice brings
what wrongs domestic rights involve
what stalks
this silence- Part II
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