Evidence of What Is Said: The Correspondence between Ann Charters and Charles Olson about History and Herman Melville

Author: Rosamund Stanhope

Publisher: Tavern Books (2020)

Here is the complete correspondence between noted Beat Generation scholar and photographer Ann Charters and The Maximus Poems author Charles Olson. Beginning in 1968 with Charters' request for Olson to reflect on his "earliest enthusiasm for Melville," and continuing until late 1969, these letters traverse the final two years of Olson's life. Centered on Charters' book Olson/Melville: A Study of Affinity, the correspondence ultimately maps two writers' existence in an America that is simultaneously experiencing the wonder of the moon landing and the chaotic escalation of the Vietnam War. All the while, their exchanges navigate the convolutions of Olson's ideas about history, space, and time in relation to his pivotal book Call Me Ishmael and his Black Mountain College lectures. Also included in this spontaneous, thoughtful, and thought-provoking epistolary is Olson's 1968 "Essay on the Matter Of," Charters' photo essay of Olson in Gloucester, and "Melville in the Berkshires," her work of experimental insight that incorporates writing by Melville.