Olson C. Mayan Letters

London: Jonathan Cape, 1968. — 90 p. — ISBN: 224 6i379 0; 224 6l378 2.Some time towards the end of 1950, it was in December I think, but the letter isn't dated, I heard that Charles Olson was off to Yucatan. A sudden 'fluke' - the availability of some retirement money owed him from past work as a mail carrier-gave him enough for the trip, 'not much but a couple of hundred, sufficient, to go, GO be, THERE...By February I had got another letter, 'have just this minute opened this machine in this house lerma...' From that lime on I heard from him regularly, and so was witness to one of the most incisive experiences ever recorded. Obviously it is very simple to call it that, that is, what then happened, and what Olson made of his surroundings and himself. Otherwise, it is necessary to remember that Olson had already been moving in this direction, back to a point of origin which would be capable of extending 'history' in a new and more
usable sense. In his book on Melville, Call Me Ishmael, he had made the statement, 'we are the last first people...'; and in his poetry, most clearly in The kingfishers, there was constant emphasis on the need to break with the too simple westernisms of a 'greek culture'. [R.Creely]