[Lectures at the Charles Olson Memorial Lectures, University at Buffalo, March 14, 17, 19, 1986] / Tom Clark.

Recorded at the University at Buffalo on March 14, 17 and 19, 1986 on four 90 minute Maxell sound cassettes.

This is the recording of the three lectures Tom Clark delivered during the Charles Olson Memorial Lectures. During the first lecture (PCF104), Clark reads and discusses what were, at the time of the lectures, unpublished poems by Olson. These works would later be published in The collected poems of Charles Olson (1987) and A nation of nothing but poetry (1989), both edited by University at Buffalo professor, George F. Butterick. Clark also reads from Olson's essays and lectures "Experience and measurement" (1966), "Review of Eric A. Havelock's preface to Plato" (1963), Poetry and truth (1968), and "Under the mushroom: The Gratwick Highlands tape" (1963). In addition, Clark reads from the marginalia in Olson's copy of Process and reality (1929) by Alfred North Whitehead. Clark quotes from and discusses Minima moralia (1951) and Aesthetic theory (1970) by Theodor Adorno and "Cyclical time in Mazdaism and Ismailism" (1951) by Henri Corbin. The second lecture (PCF105) features a question and answer session. During the third lecture (PCF106), Clark continues to read and discuss poems by Olson that were unpublished at the time of the lectures, including one poem beginning "You need never fear" which appears to have never been published. Clark focuses on the influence of Henri Corbin on Olson and quotes Corbin, Nasir Tusi, and John Smith. Clark concludes by reading two of his own poems, "Belief" and "After Dante." Due to recording technology, the remainder of the first and second lectures are on PCF107. Clark is introduced by the Poetry Collection's Curator, Robert J. Bertholf.

Tom Clark.

The Poetry Collection of the University Libraries. Digital conversion was made possible through a 2009 National Endowment for the Humanities grant.

1986

Sound recording

PCF107

PCF104.Lecture 1, March 14, 1986.Jim Bridger, first white man into Yellowstone --first line of poem:[You know, verse] --first line of poem:[I was a Eumolpidae] --first line of poem:[I just passed] --The cosmological plea --The will to --first line of poem:[You go back] --Winter solstice --first line of poem:[the dogwood comes out yellow] --The writ --The twist (3) --first line of poem:[the flower grows] --first line of poem:[I was stretched out on the earth] --The inadequate orderly simplification. But the three natural units. And only arbitrary constants --The secret of the black chrysanthemum --Maximus to Gloucester, letter 27 [withheld] --Of the United States --In celebration of Mitos] --first line of poem:[To have the bright body of sex and love] --first line of poem:[Love is the talk] --Long distance --first line of poem:[my apple branch] --Hymn to Prosperine --first line of poem:[There is a goddess] --first line of poem:[in Wiro language] --first line of poem:[barley or rye] --first line of poem:[Grinning monster out side the system]. --PCF105.Lecture 2, March 17, 1986.Heavy --Question and answers. --PCF106.Lecture 3, March 19, 1986.first line of poem:[I met my angel last night on Cinvat Bridge] --first line of poem:[Will: the rat] --first line of poem:[Beauty] --What's wrong with Pindar --The treatment --first line of poem:[With what I got out] --Memorial Day --first line of poem:[On the equator east of my son I Orion bequeath to him my riches] --The snow --To try to get down one citizen as against another --first line of poem:[The liturgical] --first line of poem:[Undazzled, keen] --first line of poem:[Sit by the window and refuse] --first line of poem:[My love is also] --first line of poem:[It's not] --The intended angle of vision is from my kitchen --first line of poem:[the proper soul] --first line of poem:[I am so small you can hardly see me, I am Priapus] --first line of poem:[All pink from the bath she slept] --A promise --Cross-legged, the spider and the web --The lie of 10, or the concept of zero --first line of poem:[Mazdaism] --first line of poem:[In one age or other, if not this]. ----PCF 107.End of lecture 1 and lecture 2.first line of poem:[I went full tilt] --first line of poem:[you better believe in your self] --first line of poem:[She did not know Evil] --first line of poem:[Follow Bet] --first line of poem:[her skin] (three versions) --Shenandoah --from The Maximus poems volume three:first line of poem:[Wholly absorbed] --The hustings --Eve, and Lilith and Adam and Pie --The Americans --The Americans (early version) --an Institute of Further Studies postcard from Charles Olson to Jack Clarke:[I like something in the Americans] --The disposition --first line of poem:[17th century men] --On the shore --Every man his own matador

or for that matter any member of the family --first line of poem:[The muse] --first line of poem:[To be bent on doing] --There is no river which is called Lethe --Future --first line of poem:[The chain of memory is resurrection I am a vain man].

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