In 1950 Charles Olson published an essay in Poetry New York called "Projective Verse", in which he attempted to outline a versification applicable to the open forms of poetry prevalent in 20^th century poetry. Olson's influence as poet and critic extended primarily through his involvement with Black Mountain College in the late 40s and 50s. Among others included in the Black Mountain "school" of poetry, mostly by virtue of their being there for some amount of time, was Jonathan Williams, who was also an active publisher of poets associated with Black Mountain through his Jargon Press, established in 1951. This paper simply examines Williams' Blues & Roots / Rue & Bluets within the scope of the ideas put forward by Olson.

If one scans the book quickly one will note little to no variation in use of the left-hand margin, "Three Graffiti... Deep in Nacoochee Valley" would be one notable exception to this rule. The only other poems that use more than one margin are mostly concrete poems, and in this sense the book as a whole does not appear to be written in the open field specified by Olson. Much of the poems consist of found material, however, which might be seen, along with concrete techniques, as extensions of the ideas outlined by Olson, or rather Olson's ideas easily embracing them. Interestingly many poems combine both found and concrete characteristics. In poems taken from graffiti or signs Williams often transcribes the poetry on the visual plane by matching the alignment and textual qualities of the words as found:

Paint Sign on a Rough Rock,/ Yonside of Boone Side of Shady Valley

BEPREPA
REDTO
MEETGO
D

The arrangement of the letters involves both the linguistic meaning and discovered situation of the words, and the interaction between these two elements creates the greater poetic whole. The act of looking twice to interpret the sentence gives the words some added weight, and the conceit of the poet having found this arrangement of letters on a sign painted "on a Rough Rock, / Yonside of Boone Side of Shady Valley", helps further in removing the poet's ego from the interaction. The poem doesn't strike up a didactic tone, but instead becomes representative of a sentiment of the region - as much because of its anonymity as its stone-impartiality.

Other poems are made of purely found material, quotes from local papers and more often locals themselves. These poems actively engage the poet in the kinetic principles of projective verse, insofar as the poem is the act of transferring energy from where the poet got it to the page. Much like Carlos Williams, speech rhythms and locality make up a major component of the color in these poems, and lend - as Olson says (letter to Feinstein) - their traction to the poem:

The Rev. A. Rufus Morgan,
In His 93rd Year,
On Mount LeConte

Rufus,

you reckon
there's anything
in Heaven

worth climbing
173 times?

In such demotic sentiments one could argue that using the field of page is unnecessary. There is no reason to stretch the lines across margins when the character of the speech is simple and pragmatic, and so I think there is a case for Williams' use of the projective here in that his form is an extension of content: terse, concise, and functional. As might be more apparent here:

Daddy Bostain, the Moses of the Wing Community Moonshiners,
Laments from His Deathbed the Spiritual Estate
Of One of His Soul-Saving Neighbors:

God bless her pore
little ol
dried up
soul!

jest make
good kindlin wood
for Hell...

The line functions as a measure of meaning and stress. "God bless her" is of less importance, verging on cliché as it is, than the descriptive terms that follow to describe the object. "good kindlin wood" is of the same nature, the longer lines contain about as much content as the shorter lines. Also in these two examples it could be imagined that the lines would follow Olson's "LAW OF THE LINE" in that the lines are the lengths of the breath; one after a climb up a mountain, and two on the deathbed, both instances where breath is shortened.

These two poems are also useful in considering negative capability, for my own sake I'll regurgitate what Keats said, "that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason". I'm still not positive what that necessarily means, other than that no attempt to reason out absurd conditions is made. I don't see that here or in the other poems in the collection, at least not in the sense that I think Keats meant it: as a surrender to passion or irrational contemplation. These two poems do display an insistence on some theological form of reason that directly tackles the uncertain and tries to impose some order and logic onto the situation, and this might apply as a matter of faith to the concept of negative capability.

On the other hand, in the sense that Williams uses the image to take objects and give them a passionate sort of clarity, and his devotion to concentrated language, there does arise a certain laconic romanticism that might carry some negative capability:

Night Landscape in Nelson County, Kentucky

ah, Moon, shine
thou as amber in thy
charred-keg, hickory sky...

still as a still, steep
as a horse's face

There is the recognition of a symbolic weight in the sky partly just by the fact that so much attention has been paid it; but that no interpretation - no meditation - is put forward directly, suggests that some component of negative capability is involved - in the sense that objects are left as "mere" objects. Metaphor/simile is used to describe the moon and sky, giving them in the poem some mystical aspect, but that mysticism is accepted without any positive capability or active rationality. Things are accepted as described. "too much for a haiku? / you hike it and see", he says (pt. 4, 'A Week from the Big Pigeon / To the Little Tennessee River').

Formally, though there is little variation in the left margin, there is use of the vertical format of the poem:

Miss Lucy Morgan Shows Me a Photograph

Of Mrs. Mary Grindstaff Spinning Wool on the High Wheel

Miss Lucy tells that one day
a visitor asked Mrs. Grindstaff
"What are you doing?"

she said "Spinning."

the tourist said
"Why doesn't it break?"

she said "Because I don't let it."

the charred heart does not break in Appalachia, they
have not let it...

the loom hums

there

Here line breaks simply delineate between voices; the exchange between Grindstaff and tourist, the voice of the poet, the loom, and then the place, that final "there". "there" closes the poem by creating a counterweight to the voice of Miss Lucy. She told the story in the first place as a point of local history, so the poet repeated it as a poem from second-hand gossip, and then returned the story to where it came from, the locality of the thing. There is a circular transfer of energy in this sense, in the full projective sense of the word "kinetic", as well as a good example of form as an extension of content, and then also one perception leading directly to another.

The poem is also self-contained, as are all the poems in the collection - in this sense Williams meets the expectations of projective verse dead-on. Any notation necessary to grasp the content of any given poem is contained in the longer titles, and beyond that proper nouns and botanical names for specific plants are given for most objects mentioned that might not be immediately familiar. There is never a moment where it seems the poem has become unapproachable because of some information the poet hasn't given us.

To Carve in Wild Cherry
For John Jacob Niles

30 dulcimers -
one long life

and what I said to the one of wild cherry was
bend a little, break later

where the bamma-gilly and the cow-cumber
flower forever
in a god's eye

out under the sky
out under the sky

It remains clear that what is of most importance to Williams is locality of the poem, and his line carries more resemblance to the line of William Carlos Williams than a Robert Duncan or Charles Olson, for whom locality was of less importance than the psychological content and ego of the poem. Williams can be seen over and over again returning to regional dialects, and the only truly projective quality of the poetry seems to be in the projection of local voices through the poem.

Jonathan Williams
Blues & Roots / Rue & Bluets
2^nd ed. Duke University Press; 1971

Charles Olson
Selected Writings
13^th ed. New York NY: New Directions Pub. Co.; 1967