[New-Poetry] Re: Longenbach on Oppen

[Anny Ballardini]

found on the net:
http://www.box.net/shared/sdcqkngjxf

Message that my father (in S F) was dying.

Hypochondriac family; my father less ill than that,

the meeting in his hospital room as equivocal, as

difficult, as dangerous to me as all our meetings--

The nurse came into the room and asked me to wait

outside a moment. I walked down the hall to a little

waiting room and sat down. The floor-nurse on duty

recognized me (I look like my father) She said, I

guess what a man cares most about in his life is his

son. I was startled and absolutely unprepared. My

father's temperature was running fairly high, I

realized that he must have talked of me. My face must

have shown how startled and how unprepared I was. The

nurse saw it, and she began to cry God help us all.

(Letters 208)

G.Oppen

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: David Graham 
  To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &Views 
  Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2008 8:28 AM
  Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Longenbach on Oppen


  In my maximalist mood in recent years, I haven't been much drawn to Oppen, but I'd certainly go with "austere lyricism" as a description.  

  The following may currently be my favorite Oppen poem because it's not especially typical.  A more traditional lyric, maybe?




  From a Photograph 


  Her arms around me --child--
  Around my head, hugging with her whole arms,
  Whole arms as if I were a loved and native rock,
  The apple in her hand--her apple and her father, and my nose pressed
  Hugely to the collar of her winter coat.  There in the photograph

  It is the child who is the branch
  We fall from, where would be bramble,
  Brush, bramble in the young Winter
  With its blowing snow she must have thought
  Was ours to give to her.   

  --George Oppen






  ========================================
  David Graham
  grahamd at ripon.edu


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  On Jan 26, 2008, at 10:21 AM, JforJames at aol.com wrote:


    In a message dated 1/25/2008 10:32:14 PM Eastern Standard Time, mandolin at mac.com writes:
      George Oppen, who wrote some of the most austerely beautiful poems  
      > of the twentieth century,


      I woder if someone could post or point me to a poem of Oppen's that  
      might justify Longenbach's statement. It could be a personal failure  
      on my part , but I've never been able to finish half a page of him-- 
      and that seems to have usually meant about 15 words. If it is just me,  
      can someone give me a clue?
    This may not justify Longenbach's statement, but here's the full poem
    of which he quoted only a snippet in the article...

    Psalm
    veritas sequitur...

    In the small beauty of the forest 
    The wild deer bedding down— 
    That they are there! 

                         Their eyes 
    Effortless, the soft lips 
    Nuzzle and the alien small teeth 
    Tear at the grass 

                         The roots of it 
    Dangle from their mouths 
    Scattering earth in the strange woods. 
    They who are there. 

                         Their paths 
    Nibbled thru the fields, the leaves that shade them 
    Hang in the distances 
    Of sun 

                       The small nouns 
    Crying faith 
    In this in which the wild deer 
    Startle, and stare out.

    --Goerge Oppen, Collected Poems. Copyright © 1975 by George Oppen. Reprinted with the permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.


    (In case the formatting comes out wrong, please note that first lines of  stanzas 2 thru 5 are tabbed over to the right)




    --
    Squall

                coming about
    When the squall knocked her
    Flat on the water. When she came
    Upright, here rig was gone
    And her crew clinging to her. The water in her cabins
    Washing thru companionways and hatches
    And the deep ribs
    Had in that mid-passage
    No kinship with any sea.


    --George Oppen
    (The Collected Poems of George Oppen, New Directions, 1975)

    --
    Others I like: "Resort," "The Mayan Ground," "Inlet," and pretty much all of  "Of Being Numerous."
    It seems apt to describe Oppen's poetry as an 'austere lyricism'.
    Finnegan





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