Nature makes leaps; history makes leaps; and the poetry of John Olson makes leaps. The series is exponential: Olson’s rejuvenation of realism follows the nonlinear lightning-path between world and word. Here, the simplest ingredients interact to produce unprecedented complexities, global cloud-systems of passion and insight.

Fed into this vortex, everyday verities are quickly accelerated to the velocity of the Marvelous. The Olsonian sentence is an explosion fixe sparked by uncanny coincidence, a speech-act spinning like an unknown home, making infinity fit for human habitation.
—Andrew Joron, author of Fathom

John Olson can stretch the language to fit the most diverse and delicate of subjects. With a sensibility both comic and dark, he shows the rest of us how deeply complexand various English can be. Olson is at the cutting edge of writing today.
—Edward Foster, editor of Talisman

Excerpts from Oxbow Kazoo

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The Linseed Arrives By Mule

THE LINSEED arrives by mule. We enjoy a sudden, acute sense of frontier. We remove our locomotive. The vision becomes burgundy. Japan awakens to lipstick. In an hour the entire brigade is ducking diacritic marks and letters. Our connection grows curious. The obelisk turns green. The anatomy of a chimera parallels that of a camera. The word ‘media’ turns to meat. It is accompanied by glands. I think this is blatant, but I’m not sure. It could also be thrilling. Sometimes a great notion condemns us to waves of unparalleled attenuation. The saw lies in the sand rusting. Perhaps that figure in the mist is Neil Young. The throat hammers at a song that doesn’t make a sound. It only emits embroidery. The anatomy of a knife. The beauty of porcelain. The sublimity of hair. The chemistry of reference. Meanwhile a napkin argues a beatitude in a cafeteria on a torn roadside. There is a waitress inside sitting alone at a table. She is the only customer. She waits on herself. For the contusion of solitude is a lush blue drug. Some of us taste it some of us don’t. Some of us hold it for ransom and some of us choke it with chrome. Some of us hang it from a vocal chord and some of us hammer it into vapor, unlocking magnets and coins.