Acknowledgments

This project began at Harvard University, and I wish to thank my advisers, David Perkins and Kathryn Lindberg, for their suggestions, comments, and editing in the early stages of the book's creation. I also gratefully acknowledge the generous support and guidance I have received over the past several years from both Helen Vendler and Seamus Heaney.

I owe a spiritual as well as a practical debt to several of the poets I was fortunate enough to meet in the course of this project. The late George Butterick was a source of inspiration in his dedicated service to Charles Olson and to the tradition at large; his death was a tragic loss for all those who value his work in the field. Robert Creeley has been of great service in providing personal insights into the tradition. Finally, I dedicate the book to Joel Oppenheimer, whose friendship, interest, and intelligence will be sorely missed.

I also wish to thank the Homer Babbidge Library at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, for the opportunity to examine unpublished materials in its Olson archives, some of which have been used in the book. I also acknowledge the kind help of Malcolm Woodfield and Joseph Lease, both of whom read portions of the manuscript and made valuable suggestions in the course of its revision.

Finally, I thank my wife, Carrie Noland, for her love and support, for her acuteness and rigor as an editor, and for the many brainstorming sessions to which she has been subjected in the course of my writing this book.

Earlier versions of three of the chapters in this book have been previously published: chapter 2 appeared in ELH 56 (1989); chapter 6 in American Poetry 6 (1988); and chapter 9 in Contemporary Literature 32 (1991).