The life and times of Charles Olson captured on film

By Chet Williamson

In his book, Worcester Area Writers: 1680-1980, local poet Michael True opens his profile of Charles Olson with a quote from the writer reading at the 1965 Berkley Poetry Conference: "Wow, I never wrote about Gloucester like this," Olson says. "I've been wrong all this time ... my subject is Worcester."

True then writes, "The fact remains, nonetheless, that the region around Cape Ann, rather than Central Massachusetts, provided the subject and theme for his major work, The Maximus Poems. Worcester appears only fleetingly in a few lyrics and in a prose memoir of his father, written in 1948."

Though he was born here, regrettably Worcester was not a source of inspiration in Olson's writing. For more than 20 years, Gloucester was given that honor. In the new documentary by filmmakers Henry Ferrini and Ken Riaf, Polis Is This: Charles Olson and the Persistence of Place, we see him in his element. In a release introducing the film, Ferrini points out why. "Charles Olson saw Gloucester, Massachusetts, as the perfect modern reflection of the ancient Greek city-state, a polis — 30,000 people shaped by their own geography and pulled by their own powerful sense of history."

Rather than a traditional documentary that takes you from Olson's Worcester birth on Mitchell Street in 1910 (he grew up on Norman Street) to his New York City death in 1970, Polis combines rare interviews, archival footage, smart commentary and animation into a visual and auditory dance of poetic beauty. The film features John Malkovich reading Olson's work, with appearances by such esteemed poets and fans as Amiri Baraka, Robert Creeley, Diane di Prima, Ed Sanders and Anne Waldman. The soundtrack features music by Willie Alexander, Pete Seeger and Stephan Wolpe.

Olson's time in Worcester was not without notoriety. While still in high school, he won a national oratorical contest that allowed him to travel to Europe. Upon his return, he enrolled at Wesleyan, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa. He then spent three years at Yale before completing his MA back at Wesleyan. Olson then set out on teaching career at Clark, Harvard and Black Mountain College in North Carolina.

As True points out, Olson's teaching and writing established him as a major influence on a younger generation of poets, including Allen Ginsberg, Robert Creeley and Ed Dorn, among others. "Some of these former students, as well as several Worcester friends, describe Olson's effectiveness as a teacher in a series of tapes in the Worcester Collection of the Worcester Public Library."

Throughout his childhood, Olson spent his summer in Gloucester. It's all there in Polis. "I came out to Worcester," Ferrini says. "I went to Norman Street. I wanted to get it in but it just didn't work out. Fifty-six minutes and 40 seconds is a tough row to hoe for a man's life."

Riaf says, "That Worcester/ Gloucester connection is really important in ways that we learned in the making of the film. It's that urban/rural [element], that blend of two upbringings that really makes Olson who he is."

"We were able to get in the fact that he was a Worcester boy — his training at Classical and becoming an orator — the thing that he never lost. That training came from Worcester," Ferrini says.

Polis has been previewed in New York, Cambridge and San Francisco. It doesn't play Gloucester until this Memorial Day weekend. It shows in Worcester throughout April, which is National Poetry Month, at various sites across the city. The schedule of screenings is: At WPI on Friday, April 13, at 2 p.m.; at Holy Cross on Tuesday, April 17, at 7 p.m.; at Worcester State College on Thursday, April 19, at 3 p.m.; at Clark University on Wednesday, April 25, at 1:30 p.m.; and at the Worcester Public Library on Wednesday, April 25, at 7 p.m. Call 797-4770 or visit www.wcpa.homestead.com. o