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4

A parallel statement is Gertrude Stein's comment: " . . . the making of a portrait of anyone is as they are existing and as they are existing has nothing to do with remembering anyone or anything . . ." In Maximus the "portrait" is a place, Gloucester, with all that may


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thereto be related—first of all, men, since "polis is / eyes . . . ," and then the 'measure' of those men and that place, as:

I measure my song,
measure the sources of my song,
measure me, measure
my forces . . .

or the literal 'mapping' of "Letter, May 2, 1959," and as well, the sense that "metric then is mapping, and so, to speak modern cant, congruent means of making a statement . . ."


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Some Notes on Olson's Maximus
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