SOURCE: "The Grammar of Illiteracy," in The Poetry of Charles Olson: A Primer, Associated University Presses, 1982, pp. 38-63.

In the following excerpt, Merrill examines the principles underlying Olson's unorthodox use of language.

Once at a poetry reading at Brandeis Charles Olson "got so damned offended" that he screamed at his audience, "You people are so literate I don't want to read to you anymore." To underscore the seriousness of his point, he added, "It's very crucial today to be sure that you stay illiterate simply because literacy is wholly dangerous, so dangerous that I'm involved everytime I read poetry, in the fact that I'm reading to people who are literate—and they are not hearing. They may be listening with all their minds, but they don't hear."

It is hard to hear someone when he is shouting all the time, Cid Corman once observed of Olson, but it...