Charles Olson

Olson, Charles (1910–70), U.S. critic and poet whose persuasive ideas challenged writers to reexamine their poetic style, structure, and phrasing, to intensify and further project its meaning. His essay Projective Verse (1950) describes his complex and distinctive mode of writing. The Maximus Poems (1960, 1968), a series of 38 poems, was his major work. He also wrote about the Mayan Indians, U.S. history, and Herman Melville.