{"id":4967,"date":"2010-09-28T08:30:11","date_gmt":"2010-09-28T12:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=4967"},"modified":"2010-09-28T08:30:11","modified_gmt":"2010-09-28T12:30:11","slug":"olsons-tombstone-blues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/olsons-tombstone-blues\/","title":{"rendered":"Olson’s Tombstone Blues"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>An email in my inbox this rainy morning led me to the site with the following press release. Thought I\u2019d pass it on:<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

For Immediate Release\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Dead Poets Society of America<\/strong><\/p>\n

Contact Walter Skold:\u00a0 info@deadpoes.org<\/a><\/p>\n

Charles Olson Tombstone in Danger of Splitting<\/strong><\/p>\n

September 28 \u2013 On the eve of the Charles Olson Centennial about to be celebrated in Gloucester, one New England poet and filmmaker has discovered that Olson\u2019s unique tombstone is in danger of splitting in half.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is sad and ironic that while the literary world is getting ready to celebrate the Olson Centennial in less than two weeks, his tombstone is suffering a slow, cold, inevitable death,\u201d says Walter Skold, of the Dead Poets Society of America.<\/p>\n

The Maine-based poet has posted pictures online that show the severe damage and he is hoping that raised awareness will lead to someone fixing or replacing\u00a0the tombstone.<\/p>\n

(See pictures here<\/a>. )<\/p>\n

\u201cI have been to over 210 poets\u2019 graves East of the Mississippi, and Olson\u2019s is one of the most interesting I\u2019ve seen,\u201d said Skold, who has led and filmed over 30 community readings at the graves of poets in 22 States.<\/p>\n

The connoisseur of poets\u2019 graves said he saw the crack on a visit to photograph Olson\u2019s grave last summer, but that it was noticeably worse when he visited just two weeks ago.<\/p>\n

Skold was in town preparing for the Columbus Day \u201cGreat Boston Poetry Marathon,\u201d which will be a sunrise to sunset celebration of past Massachusetts poets that will start on the Gloucester waterfront.<\/p>\n

That event is part of a larger nationwide effort of State Poets Laureate to establish a new literary holiday called Dead Poets Remembrance Day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to have a public reading to honor and remember Olson at his grave, which anyone can attend,\u201d said Skold.<\/p>\n

Olson died in 1970 and was buried in Gloucester\u2019s Beechbrook Cemetery, where the 40-year old stone is cracking apart.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the bad news.<\/p>\n

The good news is that it might\u00a0not be that expensive\u00a0for a conservationist to repair the stone.<\/p>\n

Given his interest in poets\u2019 graves, Skold is also a member of the Association of Gravestone Studies, so he contacted fellow members about the stone\u2019s condition.<\/p>\n

\u201cCharles and Betty Olson\u2019s gravestone is delaminating down the center of the stone,\u201d said Kai Nalenz, owner of Gravestone Services, in Bedford, New Hampshire.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf this widening gap is not addressed in the near future, the stone will split apart entirely,\u201d said the conservationist, whose business specializes in historic gravestone conservation and repair.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe stone would also benefit by a hand cleaning to remove surface lichen and other debris,\u201d Nalenz told Skold.<\/p>\n

One estimate for the cost to fix the stone was under $100.00.<\/p>\n

Sounds good, eh? Actually, there may be more bad news.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got feedback from another person who is a professional tombstone carver and she said the problem was the extremely poor quality of the original stone,\u201d said Skold \u201cAnd that she would recommend getting a new stone, from England, which would cost around $4,500.00, including the sandblasting of the design.<\/p>\n

It turns out that most modern slate in the US has fissures in it because it is blasted out of the ground, she told Skold.<\/p>\n

She also told Skold that the original Olson design was sandblasted, not hand carved, and that several thousand dollars can separate those two procedures.<\/p>\n

\u201cOlson\u2019s stone is so interesting because we have an example of a modernist poet choosing a Puritan-style \u201cDeath\u2019s Head\u201d motif for his tombstone,\u201d said Skold.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only other poets\u2019 gravestones I\u2019ve seen like that in Massachusetts are from the famous Puritan poets Michael Wigglesworth and Edward Taylor, and the James Russell Lowell stone, in Mt. Auburn Cemetery,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The grave-hunting poet is not sure if Olson chose his own design, or if someone else did after his death, and is hoping the assembled Olson scholars will have some insight into that question.<\/p>\n

Skold says he doesn\u2019t know which choice would be best for the Olson stone, but that given the respect people have for Olson he wouldn\u2019t be surprised if some people took it upon themselves to pay for the proper repair of the famous poets marker.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess something like that has to go through Olson\u2019s legal heirs,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it would be a shame if the stone were left to break in half.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s part of the job for poets to muse about death and cemeteries,\u201d said Skold, \u201cBut the twist here is that Gloucester\u2019s harsh weather is conspiring to potentially bring about an early death for the tombstone of one of her beloved poets.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Hello friends of Charles Olson,<\/p>\n

The lovely tombstone of Charles Olson and his wife is splitting in half and in need of emergency repair.<\/p>\n

The Dead Poets Society of America has issued a press release<\/a> about the tombstone, and what it might cost to get it repaired.<\/p>\n

If you think this is something important for people to know, please contact the editors of the Gloucester Times to ask them to write about it.<\/p>\n

Also, for those of you who are going to still be in Gloucester for Columbus Day, the 11th, please join us for a sunrise reading of Vincent Ferrini at the Fisherman memorial and then a special reading at the gravesite of Olson.<\/p>\n

See details here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sincerely,<\/p>\n

Walter Skold
\nThe Dead Poet Guy<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An email in my inbox this rainy morning led me to the site with the following press release. Thought I\u2019d pass it on: For Immediate Release\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Dead Poets Society of America Contact Walter Skold:\u00a0...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76,830],"tags":[232],"class_list":["post-4967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-obituaries","category-poet","tag-charles-olson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4967"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4975,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4967\/revisions\/4975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}