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“Oppen and literary history have been well served.”

—Year’s Work in English Studies

Contributions by Michael André Bernstein, Donald Davie, L. S. Dembo, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Theodore Enslin, Norman Finkelstein, Michael Hamburger, Michael Heller, Eric Homberger, Paul Lake, Eric Mottram, John Peck, Marjorie Perloff, Hugh Seidman, Harvey Shapiro, Henry Weinfield, and George and Mary Oppen. This volume also includes an annotated bibliography of critical works on Oppen, 1934-1981.

Contents

The Milieu

Harvey Shapiro, “Brooklyn/San Francisco”

Burton Hatlen and Tom Mandel, “Poetry and Poetics: A Conversation with George and Mary Oppen”

Mary Oppen, “Re: Maine”

John Peck, “George Oppen and the World in Common: A Descriptive Polemic”

Randolph Chilton, “The Place of Being in the Poetry of George Oppen”

Paul Lake, “The Archetypal Gesture: Myth and History in the Poetry of George Oppen”

Rachel Blau DuPlessis, “Objectivist Poetics and Political Vision: A Study of Oppen and Pound”

Eric Mottram, “The Political Responsibilities of the Poet: George Oppen”

Edward Hirsch, “‘Out There Is the World’: The Visual Imperative in the Poetry of George Oppen and Charles Tomlinson”

Eric Homberger, “George Oppen and the Culture of the American Left”

The Method

L.S. Dembo, “Oppen on His Poems: A Discussion”

Marjorie Perloff, “‘The Shape of the Lines’: Oppen and the Metric of Difference”

Michael Andre Bernstein, “Reticence and Rhetorics: The Poetry of George Oppen”

Hugh Seidman, “‘Boy’s Room’: A Note on Clarity and Detachment”

Abby Shapiro, “Building a Phenomenological World: Cubist Technique in the Poetry of George Oppen”

Harvey Kail, “A Test of Images: George Oppen’s ‘Vulcan’”

The Canon

Discrete Series

William Carlos Williams, “The New Poetical Economy”

Tom Sharp, “George Oppen, Discrete Series, 1929-1934″

Harold Schimmel, “(On) Discrete Series

Middle Period

Burton Hatlen, “‘Not Altogether Lone in a Lone Universe’: George Oppen’s The Materials

Norman M. Finkelstein, “The Dialectic of This In Which

Henry Weinfield, “‘Of Being Numerous’ by George Oppen”

David McAleavey, “Clarity and Process: Oppen’s Of Being Numerous

Recent Work

Donald Davie, “Notes on George Oppen’s Seascape: Needle’s Eye

Michael Hamburger, “George Oppen’s Collected Poems

Michael Heller, “Conviction’s Net of Branches”

Theodore Enslin, “Of What is Prime and Primal: Considerations of George Oppen’s Primitive

The Testament

David McAleavey, “A Bibliography of Discussions of George Oppen’s Work: Reviews, Articles, Essays, and Books”

Burton Hatlen and Julie Courant, “Annotated Chronological Bibliography of Discussions of George Oppen’s Work: Reviews, Articles, Essays, and Books”