It is with great sadness that we report the passing of Ralph Maud. Ralph was scheduled to deliver this year’s Charles Olson Lecture, but was forced to cancel the engagement owing to his declining health. A colleague and friend of the poet Charles Olson in the 1960s, Maud went on to become a highly respected Olson scholar, authoring numerous books and editing a long running newsletter about the Gloucester poet. One of the more interesting projects Ralph undertook was assembling a replica of Charles Olson’s library. This collection, consisting of more than five thousand books and transcriptions of the notes Olson made while reading them, provides a unique insight into the sources of Olson’s poetry and thought. Arrangements are being made for transferring the collection to the care of the Gloucester Writers Center.
