Himself influenced by great poets such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams, Charles Olson is a hallmark of his time. His poetic career during the 1950s and 60s earned him a position of veneration within and without his professional community. As a rule-breaker, he laid forth an entirely original approach to poetry which defies the traditional adherence to form and context.
In terms of aesthetics, Olson believes that a poem must originate in the poet's heart. For him, poetry is a direct communication of something personal to an unnamed third party, the reader. It's a kind of magic which allows readers to live multiple lives. This commitment to feeling led Olson to reconsider how he structures his poems. As a result, he formats his poems around the breath structure of a reader. Ignoring grammatical structure and tradition, he times his lines to accompany the normal human breath, which in turn directly reminds the reader of the point of their reading since the breath is tied to the blood flow which once more stems from the heart. Although physiologically tied, this revolutionary approach is the result of Olson's commitment to original, meaningful text.
Olson's influence extends throughout his peers, in a generation when convention became increasingly inappropriate. He did not push his writing to extreme lengths because he wanted to preserve the integrity of his thoughts, so his work is not as flashy as some of his successors. Poets whom he directly inspired include Denise Levertove, Paul Blackburn, and Robert Creeley. Throughout the generations, Olson's name has gradually become forgotten, but those whom he inspired to reconsider their own preconceived ideas concerning the function and form of poetry still testify to his greatness.
