Charles Olson (1910-1970) defined and practiced an open, kinetic poetry which influenced many of the second generation of modern poets.

Charles Olson, born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1910, was an energetic giant of a man. In his youth his energy took the form of conspicuous academic success. He was Phi Beta Kappa and a candidate for a Rhodes scholarship at Wesleyan University, where he earned a B.A. in 1932 and an M.A. in 1933 with a thesis on Herman Melville. By 1939 Olson completed course work for a Ph.D. in American civilization at Harvard University, published his essay "Lear and Moby Dick," and received his first Guggenheim fellowship to continue research on Melville. In the 1940s Olson moved away from a traditional academic career, through a disillusioning flirtation with politics, to his lifelong work as a poet. His youthful energy and scholarship came to distinguish his poetry.

Much of...