Kirby Olson's Work

KIRBY OLSON State University of New York at Delhi kirbyolson2@hotmail.com

PUBLICATIONS

Books

Gregory Corso: Doubting Thomist (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2002).

Comedy After Postmodernism: Rereading Comedy From Edward Lear to Charles Willeford (Lubbock: Texas Technical University Press, 2001).

Translator - Remembering Anna O.: A Century of Mystification by Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen (Routledge, 1996).

Articles

"Joanne Kyger and Zen Poetry," Exquisite Corpse On-Line #7(edited by Andrei Codrescu).
"Mike Topp, Yoko Ono, and Deleuzian Order-Words," Exquisite Corpse On-Line, #6.
"Surrealism, Haiti and Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God," Re: Artes Liberales , Volume 25 (2), Fall 2000.
"Tharmas: The Physical Poetry of Peter Orlovsky," Exquisite Corpse On-Line #4, 1999.
"The War on the Home Front: Comedy and Political Identity in the Work of Stewart Home" (Performing Gender and Comedy: Theories, Texts and Contexts . Ed. Shannon Hengen. Amsterdam: Gordon & Breach, 1998, 167-177.)
"P.G. Wodehouse as Political Scientist: Bertie and Jeeves at the End of History," Humor (9) (1) (Winter, 1996) 73-88.
"Reading Frank O'Hara w/ Charles Altieri and Gilles Deleuze," Exquisite Corpse 56 (1996): 4-5.
"Edward Lear: Deleuzian Landscape Painter," Victorian Poetry 31 (4) (Winter, 1993): 347-363.

Translations from French

"Five Poems," by Henry J.-M. Levet. Common Knowledge 1:2 (1992): 165-171.
"Two Poems," by Henry J.-M. Levet.
Partisan Review 1 (1989): 52-53. Many other short translations from the surrealist and symbolist period have been published in Exquisite Corpse, Asylum, New American Writing, Jacket and other literary reviews.

Current work includes a book-length manuscript on Romanian-American humorist Andrei Codrescu, and his relationship to time and space. The working title is Andrei Codrescu and the Open Society. Shorter articles on poet Larry Fagin and a theme in Shakespeare are in the works. In general, I am interested in aesthetics in 20th century literature and poetry.

In addition, hundreds of shorter pieces, including poetry, comic essays, stories, cartoon strips, dance and literary criticism in art and popular journals and newspapers, including Partisan Review, Exquisite Corpse , Seattle Weekly , High Performance , Rampike , and Asylum . Creative work anthologized in Light Year (Bits Press), The Stiffest of the Corpse (City Lights Books), and Thus Spake the Corpse (Black Sparrow Books). Interviews with Stewart Home, Kathy Acker, Andrei Codrescu, Robert Colescott, Kenward Elmslie, Arthur Danto, Bob Black and Marine Hugonnier have appeared in art and literary journals. Short reviews of the poetry and fiction of Elaine Equi, James Laughlin, Gavin Ewart, Paulè Barton, Philippe Soupault, Brian Evenson, and Helena Lewis and many others have appeared in American Book Review , Literary Magazine Review , Seattle Weekly , Rolling Stock , Exquisite Corpse , Xavier Review and San Francisco Review of Books . Currently book reviewer for Canadian comparative literature journal Recherche Littéraire, with reviews of books by Jon Woodson on Jean Toomer, and Myriam Boucharenc on Philippe Soupault, and Michael Skau on Gregory Corso, among others.

PUBLIC PRESENTATIONS

"Andrei Codrescu's Millenial Novel Messiah." Conference on Romanian Studies, MLA Chicago, December 1999. Convenor: Calin-Andrei Mihailescu (University of W. Ontario, Canada).
"Lyotard." Seminar on Postcommunist Discourse in Debrecen, Hungary, September 1997, during the European Society for the Study of English bi-annual conference. Convenor: Yonka Krasteva (University of Sophia, Bulgaria).
"Gregory Corso and Postmodern Christianity." Conference on Ecology and Literature in Swansea, Wales, March 1997. Convenor: Greg Garrard (University of Swansea, Wales).
"Bishop Berkeley's Theory of Vision." Conference on Aesthetic Disciplines and Politics at Stanford University, October 1991. Convenor: Kirstin Behnke (Stanford University, CA).
"Pierre Klossowski's Theological Vindication of the Graven Image." Conference on Christianity and Twentieth Century Art and Literature in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, April 1991. Convenor: Department of Comparative Religion, Louisiana State University.