1968

Voice: Right. Well, in a sense it's not even relevant to discuss as poetry. Are you--in other words, the question I have is, are you and Creeley and Duncan--I mean is this a new movement? Are you creating, are you at all together?

Olson: No, I think that whole "Black Mountain poet" thing is a lot of bullshit. I mean, actually, it was created by the editor, the famous editor of that anthology for Grove Press, Mr. Allen, where he divided--he did a very--but it was a terrible mistake made. He created those sections--Black Mountain, San Francisco, Beat, New York, New, Young, huh? Oh, I mean, imagine, just for the hear of it, "Young." Hear the insult, if you're young. You're suddenly classified into a thing--by one of the great editors, the found of Evergreen Review. And the first issues of Evergreen, the first four issues of Evergreen were, really, first rate. But he made a big mistake; he made a topological error. I mean he had the wrong topology. And he created somthing which is very unhappy. For example, poets, who just can't get us straight because they think we form a sort of a club or a claque or a gang or something. And that there was a poetics? Ha ha. Boy, there was no poetic. It was Charlie Parker. Literally, it was Charlie Parker. He was the Bob Dylan of the Fifties.

(from "On Black Mountain," an informal talk given by Olson on March 26, 1968 at Beloit College, collected in Muthologos II)