Open Access

Stefanie Heine

• Etymology plays a central role for Charles Olson's poetics. Based on the assumption that language precedes individual speakers and thereby always carries its long history and the traces of those who spoke it before with it, Olson's approach to it is archeological. At the same time, his work as a poet is directed towards to the future: he writes at the avant-gardist Black Mountain College and demands a new American poetry, designated as "projective verse". Conjoining these two temporal directions, Olson claims "I am an archeologist of morning". One way of paving the way for a 'poetry of morning' is uncovering the origins of words and going back to their etymological roots. Thereby, it is important to note that Olson's etymologies are mostly faulty or simplified. Often, they turn out to be quotes he found in other works. By integrating the fishy etymologies in his own writing and handling them creatively, Olson endows the words' supposed history with something new and readers who trace the wrong etymological tracks are encouraged to capture an immediate impetus of language in action. Thus, Olson's 'etymons' go hand in hand with the poetological implications of projective verse.