Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Charles Olson’s "Disposition" unfolds as a brief yet profound meditation on geography, displacement, and perhaps the shifting locus of human destiny. The poem captures a sense of resignation or inevitability in how societies and civilizations are evolving or, as Olson implies, regressing from any ideal of harmony.

The opening line, “All does draw back from the Atlantic,” suggests a retreat or retraction. Olson, often preoccupied with spatial and historical consciousness, seems to be referencing the Atlantic as a symbol of the past, possibly alluding to Europe and its fading influence in the modern world. The Atlantic, historically the site of exploration, colonization, and the spread of Western ideas, becomes a diminished symbol, one from which humanity is now “drawing back.” In this context, Olson’s statement about France—“There is no hope for France”—could reflect the poet’s critique of a waning Western Europe, once culturally dominant but now seen as struggling or irrelevant in the post-war global context.

Olson’s focus then shifts to the Pacific, and specifically to Los Angeles, which he places as a metaphorical gravitational center. The line, “The hole which the moon made when it pulled out of the Pacific,” is enigmatic, suggesting cosmic shifts and seismic ruptures. This moon-pulled “hole” implies a void or point of origin, perhaps something primordial, and Olson’s use of this celestial imagery to characterize Los Angeles aligns with his fascination with new beginnings and mythological spaces. Los Angeles, at the edge of the Pacific, becomes a paradoxical place where people “now properly should hang,” indicating a kind of orbit around this mythic city on the western edge of the continent.

In concluding with “Paradisio has nothing any longer to do with hell,” Olson reflects on the separation of paradise from torment, contrasting old cosmological or religious views where paradise and hell were linked, such as in Dante’s "Divine Comedy." Olson’s "Paradisio" and "hell" here suggest that any former unification of experience, where suffering and transcendence might coexist, is no longer relevant. In modernity, Los Angeles—or by extension, any modern “paradise”—is detached from the ideas of consequence or moral struggle that “hell” traditionally embodied.

Thus, "Disposition" is a compact and layered piece that speaks to modernity’s estrangement from traditional centers of meaning, expressing Olson’s ambivalence toward this cultural and spiritual shift. His imagery of planetary movements and geographical boundaries reveals his view of contemporary civilization as unmoored and in search of a new gravitational pull—now located in a disenchanted yet alluring West Coast, symbolized by Los Angeles as a place removed from the moral binaries that once defined human endeavor.

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