Literary Nonfiction. Memoir. Charles Boer offers less a work of literary criticism or traditional biography than a portrait of one of the 20th century's most influential writers from a friend and student's point of view. Boer's choice to write in the second person, as if to Olson, himself, lends the work a quality of intimacy. This stands as one of the vital books for those with an interest in the study of Charles Olson, full of direct quotations which shed light on aspects of Olson's character, his scholarly work and his poetry.
