Charles Olson’s ‘Projective Verse’ and the Inscription of the Breath
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20248171 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Brendan C Gillott (University of Cambridge, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 7 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 108 |
| Publication date | 2018-11-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Humanities (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2076-0787 • E-ISSN: 2076-0787 |
| Publisher | MDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT) |
| DOI | 10.3390/h7040108 |
| OpenAlex | W2898747995 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 11 |
Charles Olson’s hugely influential essay-manifesto ‘Projective Verse’ is usually understood as proposing a close - and a necessary—link between poetry and body. Some account of Olson’s as a ‘poetics of embodiment’ or a ‘breath-poetics’ is almost ubiquitous in the extant criticism, yet what this might actually mean or imply for poetry and poetry-reading remains unclear. ‘Projective Verse’ is deeply ambivalent about print, seeing in it the ‘closed verse’ Olson looked to replace, while simultaneously idealising the typed-and-printed page as the only medium for the supposed immediacy of the poet’s breath. This essay contends that Olson’s lionisation of the typewriter is accompanied by a suppressed inscriptional register—a concern with carving and engraving—and asks what the substrate hosting this inscription might be. The aims of the piece are twofold: to demonstrate that ‘Projective Verse’ contains a logic of inscription which has gone severely underappreciated; and to argue that this logic runs up against the much better-documented logic of poetic embodiment via the breath in such a way as to deeply trouble criticism’s rather murky understanding of what that latter logic implies, both in Olson’s specific case and for poetry more generally
Art · Criticism · Linguistics · Literature · Manifesto · Poetics · Poetry · Diverse Musicological Studies · Philosophy · Poetry Analysis and Criticism · Translation Studies and Practices
| Citations per year | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Highly cited | No |