Olson's massive "projective verse" epic, centered on the fishing port of Gloucester, Massachusetts: a meditation on place, history, and the phenomenology of attention. Less accessible than most books on this list, but foundational to the Black Mountain School, the Language Poets, and the entire tradition of postwar American experimental poetry. His essay "Projective Verse" was the most influential single document in American experimental poetics.

The case for it, the case against, and the rest of the canon open with Pro.