Charles Olson gets a conference

Charles Olson would turn 99 next week, were he still trooping around on this plane - though, at that age, he might not be trooping very far or very often; he'd be trying, though. I'll be doing a special WordPlay next Sunday to mark the date, and begin my quiet personal celebration of his centenary.

The folks at Vancouver''s Simon Fraser University are marking that centenary in a much larger way, by hosting a conference focused on his work in June of next year. Not much at the website yet, except for registration information, but the range of topics for which they sought proposals looks great. If you don't yet have plans for early next June ... well, it's a great time of the year to visit Vancouver, one of the finest cities in North America.

By way of disclaimer: if the sky don't fall, I'll be there to make a presentation on Olson's curricular projects, along with the many other Olson fans, poets and scholars, some of whom I'm really excited to have the prospect of meeting, having heard of them, known of their work, and/or read them for years. It's going to be a hoot.

More to come.

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Photo: Charles Olson on the beach, from the Olson archives in Storrs, via the Olson Centenary Conference, straightened back to vertical.