George Oppen
George Oppen
George Oppenwas an American poet, best known as one of the members of the Objectivist group of poets. He abandoned poetry in the 1930s for political activism and later moved to Mexico to avoid the attentions of the House Un-American Activities Committee. He returned to poetry — and to the United States — in 1958, and received the Pulitzer Prize in 1969...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth24 April 1908
CountryUnited States of America
carefully left people pointless seemed socialist stayed theory wrote
The situation of the Old Left was the theory of Socialist Realism, etc. It seemed pointless to argue. We stayed carefully away from people who wrote for the New Masses.
discrete series terms
A discrete series is a series of terms each of which is empirically derived, each one of which is empirically true. And this is the reason for the fragmentary character of those poems.
study written knows
It is necessary to study these words you have written, for the words have a longer history than you have and say more than you know.
Things explain each other, not themselves.
would-be mathematical term
A pure mathematical series would be one in which each term is derived from the preceding term by a rule.
art mets situation
There are situations which cannot honorably be met by art.
honesty firsts sincerity
The first question at that time in poetry was simply the question of honesty, of sincerity.
lines cadence pulse
The meaning of a poem is in the cadences and the shape of the lines and the pulse of the thought which is given by those lines.
beautiful world clarity
Clarity, clarity, surely clarity is the most beautiful thing in the world, A limited, limiting clarity I have not and never did have any motive of poetry But to achieve clarity.
art poetry records
Those who are not very concerned with art want poems or pictures to record for them something they already know - as one might want a picture of a place he loves.
self mystery
The self is no mystery, the mystery is / That there is something for us to stand on