Peter Cole’s writing exemplifies Charles Olson’s notion that the poet is a transfer station, and that the poem “is energy transferred from where the poet got it (he will have some several causations), by way of the poem itself to, all the way over to, the reader.”[1] Cole channels his own poems’ “several causations” through his experience as a journeyman translator of Hebrew and Arabic language poetries, modern and medieval.
Begin anywhere:
The Short Takes on Long Poems symposium
I'm taking the beach-poem at its word, and beginning anywhere.
In my case, since I’m just back from the Short Takes on Long Poems symposium at the University of Auckland, I thought I might start there.