News at Eleven: [George] Oppen's interest is nothing less

than the negotiated relationship of the individual to the world around him. Having all of his poems together in one place makes clear that, although he may have started out as an Objectivist, his work cannot be pigeonholed into any particular -ism.

After Discrete Series, Oppen didn't publish another book until 1962. He kept silent for almost 30 years, in part because of the anti-Communist crusades of the 1950s and in part because he refused to let his work lapse be used or misused as mere propaganda. Or maybe he just had nothing to say? As the title of his nostalgic second book would indicate, The Materials was less about objects themselves than the memories we have of them.


from The Philadelphia Inquirer: Collected joy: Oppen's poems

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