I arrived at Annisquam, a village nearby Gloucester, on Sunday, April 13, about midday. I was the houseguest of the poet Gerrit Lansing whom I had met a few years previously in New York at a party given by the poet Kenward Elmslie. Early in the evening Gerrit and I decided to set out for the Cut. It was seven-thirty when we reached Charles Olson’s flat to discover a note taped to the windowpane of the rear door, which read as follows: “Gerard: Best I can see is if another night will do me any good (if you can afford to try me again). Gerrit—Gerard—Have been in bed with some strange malady solidly since Saturday. This is to get you an immediate response.” I answered the note stating that I would try again the following night to catch him at home.

Monday at five-forty-five P.M. Gerrit and I returned to the scene. The sun had just disappeared behind the village scattered among the hills across the Cut. I had my Uher 1000 Report Pilot strapped to my shoulder. Upon reaching the door Gerrit and I discovered a second note (Olson’s notorious for his door memos), which read: “I shall try to see if anything comes into my head—I actually mean if my head has any response itself—and either change this note or call you and Gerrit.”

Returning to Gerrit’s house I immediately phoned Mr. Olson with whom I exchanged a few words and agreed that I should come by tomorrow at leisure without fixing a prescribed time.

The following day, Gerrit and I were met by Harvey Brown (publisher of Niagra Frontier Books) who, from nearby West Newbury, joined us for lunch. Afterward, Gerrit, Harvey and I decided to see if Olson was up and around. I didn’t have my machine with me, so was not expecting to begin an interview, having not planned to visit Mr. Olson at this time.

A chance meeting with Mr. Olson on Tuesday beside the wooden staircase leading to his second-story floor-through apartment was a benediction. We had not met before, but upon seeing him, it was as if he had been waiting for me to arrive the entire afternoon. I found him facing the driveway and the bay, enjoying the sunlight and the breath of brine wafting from the sea. His discourse was chiefly of the past; but he was not unmindful of current events nor was he unaffected by the picturesque surroundings of his secluded abode. With seeing vision, acutest faculties, and clearest utterance, Olson surveyed his little seaside hamlet and its environs, interpreted the marvels all about him and shed the light of his presence upon the common things of the sea and land always within sight. An hour with this gentleman of the old school, in seclusion deepened and shadowed by hill, cliff, rock, tree, shrub, and vine, and sweetened by the mingling odors of marsh and upland, was the beginning of what turned out to be an all-night affair. Listening to him speak, long after the sun went down and long after having run out of tape, until the morning hours, was a deep and most enchanting experience.

When I awoke a few hours after the all-night conversation, I found the flat empty. The cool blue sunlight of morning filtered through all the southern-exposure windows of the flat. In the kitchen on a table cluttered with beer cans, cigarette and cigar butts, and unanswered correspondence, I found a draft of a new Olson poem scribbled on the back of an envelope, which read:

To build out of sound the walls of the city & display in one flower the wunderworld so that, by such means the unique stand forth clear itself shall be made known.

I slipped his words like a thief into the breast pocket of my coat. My eyes then caught sight of a note addressed to me from Mr. Olson which read: “Forgive me if I sleep until I wake up (?)—Like, like, why now? When—call??? Ever???? Ever??? P.S. Buy more tapes.”

CHARLES OLSON

Get a free chair and sit down. Don’t worry about anything. Especially this. We’re living beings and forming a society; we’re creating a total, social future. Don’t worry about it. The kitchen’s reasonably orderly. I crawled out of bed as sick as I was and threw a rug out the window.

INTERVIEWER

Now the first question I wanted to ask you. What fills your day?

OLSON

Nothing. But nothing, literally, except my friends.

INTERVIEWER

These are very straight questions.

OLSON

Ah, that’s what interviews are made of.

INTERVIEWER

Why have you chosen poetry as a medium of artistic creation?

OLSON

I think I made a hell of a mistake. That’s the first confidence I have. The other is that—I didn’t really have anything else to do. I mean I didn’t even have enough imagination to think of something else. I was supposed to go to Holy Cross because I wanted to play baseball. I did, too. That’s the only reason I wanted to go to Holy Cross. It had nothing to do with being a priest.

INTERVIEWER

Are you able to write poetry while remaining in the usual conditions of life—without renouncing or giving up anything?

OLSON

That’s the trouble. That’s what I’ve done. What I’ve caused and lost. That describes it perfectly. I’ve absolutely.

INTERVIEWER

Are the conditions of life at the beginning of a work . . .

OLSON

I’m afraid as well at the end. It’s like being sunk in a cockpit. I read the most beautiful story about how Will Rogers and Wiley Post were lost; they stomped onto a lake about ten miles from Anchorage, Alaska, to ask an Indian if Anchorage was in that direction and when they took off, they plunged back into the lake. The poor boy was not near enough to rescue them, so he ran ten miles to Anchorage to get the people to come out. He said one of the men had a sort of a cloth on his eye and the guy then knew Post and Rogers were lost. Wiley Post put down on pontoons; so he must have come up off this freshwater lake and went poomp. Isn’t that one of those great national treasures. I’ll deal you cards, man. I’ll make you a tarot.

INTERVIEWER

Does poetry constitute the aim of your existence?

OLSON

Of course I don’t live for poetry; I live far more than anybody else does. And forever and why not. Because it is the only thing. But what do you do meanwhile? So what do you do with the rest of the time? That’s all. I said I promised to witness. But I mean I can’t always.

INTERVIEWER

Would you say that the more you understand what you are doing in your writing, the greater the results?

OLSON

Well, it’s just one of those things that you’re absolutely so bitterly uninterested in that you can’t even live. Somehow it is so interesting that you can’t imagine. It is nothing, but it breaks your heart. That’s all. It doesn’t mean a thing. Do you remember the eagle? Farmer Jones gets higher and higher and he is held in one of the eagle’s claws and he says you wouldn’t shit me would you? That’s one of the greatest moments in American poetry. In fact, it is the great moment in American poetry. What a blessing we got.

INTERVIEWER

Does Ezra Pound’s teaching bear any relevance to how your poems are formed on the page?

OLSON

My masters are pretty pertinent. Don’t cheat your own balloon. I mean—literally—like a trip around the moon—the Jules Verne—I read that trip . . . it is so completely applicable today. They don’t have any improvements yet.