OLSONNOW 3

OlsonNow 3: Charles Olson @ Buffalo
April 14, 2007, 1 p.m.
Hallwalls Cinema at the Church
341 Delaware Avenue, Buffalo, NY
$6, $4 members of Hallwalls or Just Buffalo/Students with I.D.

Charles Olson taught at the University at Buffalo from 1963-1965. His presence at the University continues to reverberate in Buffalo. His many contemporaries brought in for readings or for teaching gigs (Robert Duncan, Denise Levertov, Ed Dorn, John Wieners, Gregory Corso, Amiri Baraka, et al) helped create a unique atmosphere in which innovative poetry could flourish. Many of his students and colleagues from Buffalo went on to make important contributions to poetry and scholarship, including: Charles Boer, Harvey Brown, George Butterick, Jack Clarke, Albert Glover, Duncan McNaughton, Stephen Rodefer, Fred Wah and others. Perhaps even more important, his replacement, Robert Creeley, who arrived in 1966, kept that spirit alive for 40 years. His influence lead directly to the founding of Just Buffalo in 1975 as a venue to present poetry in the community rather than in the academy, and to the creation of the Poetics Program at the University in 1989.

The third installment of OlsonNow: Charles Olson @ Buffalo will take place on April 14 at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center Cinema in Buffalo, New York. At this event, we hope to highlight Olson’s brief but important tenure at the University at Buffalo. Confirmed guests include Anne Waldman, Ammiel Alcalay, Michael Basinski, Robert Bertholf, Michael Kelleher, David Landrey, Jonathan Skinner, and others. Michael Basinski, Curator of the Poetry Collection at SUNY Buffalo will talk about the Poetry Collection’s recent acquisition of the papers of Jack Clarke. The event will also include a screening of Henry Ferrini’s Polis is This: Charles Olson and the Persistence of Place. The filmmaker will be on hand to introduce the film and to answer questions afterward. All are welcome to participate in the discussion that will take place throughout the afternoon. If you would like to make a brief, informal presentation at the event, please click the contact link to the right.

Sponsored by Just Buffalo, Hallwalls, UB Poetry Collection, UB Humanities Institute