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to poetry”. It arises rather out of a new or different stance towards poetry, a stance that involves, said Charles Olson, “… a change beyond and larger than, the technical, and may, the way things look, lead to new poetics and to new concepts from which some sort of drama, say, or of epic, perhaps, may emerge.”  Having created a field poetics that may permit within each poem more experience than even the poet may have anticipated, Olson left the way open for not only the breath but also the body. And once into the field the body may re-inform, color and amplify  the poem in its power, resonance and impact.
 
Richard Haisma, a Certified Movement Analyst in Laban Movement Analysis,  has been  a dancer, choreographer and actor for over 35 years. All of his experience has been in a tradition that defines movement composition  in the same way as Charles Olson defined poetic composition, that is, that form is never more than an extension of content and that one perception must immediately and directly lead to a further  perception. This movement tradition, unique in the world of dance, was initiated by Rudolf Laban (1879-1958) and carried forward by Mary Wigman, Hanya Holm, Alwin Nikolais.  It plumbs the depths of movement in the same fundamental way as Olson took hold of words, seeking as he might have put it, “a position inferior to motion.”  This means that kinetics is motion that contains its own intelligence, and the poems of Charles Olson are analogous fields directing the body of the performer into  new kinds of kinetic theater.
 
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With this performance, actor-dancer Richard Haisma reveals the kinetic and dramatic depth of Olson’s vision. From The Maximus Poems and  the Collected Poetry a selection of the most moving, visceral and clairvoyant poems are performed with vocal virtuosity and theatrical vigor. While most writers are familiar with Olson’s legacy, the physical viability of his voice now has a champion for reaching a larger audience in a publicly radiant and moving manner. This performance will be neither a poetry “recital” nor a “dancing”