Peter, from the way you explain it, I was probably too keen to call Olson an academic—in the sense that he and Black Mountain University were recognised within the wider academy as being “credibly academic”. I based my view on the way that he is now seen within academia — at least among academics who see themselves as “nurturers” of emerging avantgarde “poet-students” etc.
But I still think Tim’s article has some merit, despite my shifting the discussion away from it and on to Olsen. Whether one can categorise the sort of poetry written and supported by academics and students, who see themselves as writing “avantgarde poetry”, as really being “academic poetry”, there is, at least from what Tim said in his article, a lot of activity, within recognised academic institutions that run creative writing courses, aimed at “promoting” students and, in some cases, staff as well.
I think this discussion has skirted around this main issue, by focusing too much on whether any particular poetry, poet or academic can be legitimately categorised as being academic or not. I’m to blame for this, too, by starting my exchange with Jamie.
I wonder where Tim has gone?
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Peter Riley wrote:
I doubt if there is any answer to this question. All I wanted to do was to put right people’s notions about Charles Olson’s career as an academic, and its implications. Olson’s only substantial period of teaching in a college was at Black Mountain College 1951-1957. Other posts were sporadic, the longest the University of Buffalo 1963-1965. Black Mountain was an independent institution specifically designed to get away from the State educational structure. It had been running since 1933 mainly as an art college; Olson was in charge of it in its last years and in some opinions shipwrecked it through monomania.
All the academic (meaning learnéd) work that Olson did in those places and through his life were unorthodox, conceived in his own terms, mostly in his house in a small port town in Massachusetts. He was not aiming at a Ph.D. He certainly gained no advantages in publication or readership from any academic posts or repute. Black Mountain’s reputation was as a practical training-ground in art, music and latterly writing, and most people interested in poetry would never have heard of it. If he is thought of now as an "academic”poet it can only be because of the demanding nature of language-use in his poetry and the elaborate way it uses historical and anthropological documentation. I’m sure Drew’s right about his virtuosic research abilities, though I don’t always feel very comfortable with the results.
I don’t see that the division of poets into academic and non-academic has any validity, not here and now. Many poets before and since have been in the same kind of position that Olson was.
Pr
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