George Oppen
George Oppen , born as George Oppenheimer (born April 24, 1908 in New Rochelle , New York , † July 7, 1984 in California ) was an American poet who belongs to the group of objectivists .
Life
Oppen was the child of a wealthy Jewish family and grew up north of New York City . His mother died when he was four years old. He didn't get along well with his stepmother. His sailing skills later found expression in his poetry. A domestic worker gave him knowledge of carpentry so that he could earn a living as a carpenter and joiner in later stages of life.
In 1917 the family moved to San Francisco , where Oppen attended a military-oriented high school. After surviving a serious car accident as a driver, he was traumatized. This resulted in his being expelled from school shortly before graduating in 1925. In the months that followed, he visited his stepmother's relatives in Scotland and attended lectures at the University of St Andrews . In 1925 he began studying at the Oregon State Agricultural College in Corvallis , now Oregon State University . There he met his future wife, Mary Colby. The young couple broke house rules and stayed out of college overnight. The result was that Mary was expelled and he was suspended. In 1927 his father changed the family name from Oppenheimer to Oppen.
Over the next few years, the couple hitchhiked across the United States, got married, and got by doing odd jobs. Oppen began writing his first poems, which were occasionally printed in local newspapers. The couple went to New York City in 1929 and 1930, where the two met poets such as Louis Zukofsky and Charles Reznikoff and met the musician Tibor Serly and the designer Russel Wright . In 1929 Oppen made a small inheritance that allowed the couple to live independently, first in California in 1930 and then in France . In France, he co-founded To Publishers with Zukofsky . The short-lived journal published works by Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams . During this time Oppen published his first volume of poetry Discrete Series .
The Oppens returned to New York City in 1933 and founded Objectivist Press with Williams, Zukofsky and Reznikoff . Oppen became a member of the Communist Party and was campaign manager in Brooklyn in 1936 . In the following years, the couple was actively involved in strike and relief operations. Oppen was charged with assaulting the police and acquitted. When the Second World War broke out , he was released from military service for the time being because he worked in the defense industry. However, he left his employer and volunteered for the front line. He experienced this in 1944 in eastern France and during the German Ardennes offensive , in which he was seriously wounded. In 1945 he was awarded the Purple Heart and returned to New York City.
Oppen and his wife went to Mexico in the post-war years because they were certain that they, like others , would be persecuted by the US Committee on Un-American Activities of Joseph McCarthy for their communist past . In Mexico, Oppen ran a small furniture factory, constantly watched by the Mexican police and the FBI . The couple could not return home because their passports had been invalidated since 1950. It was not until 1958 that they could apply for new passports and visit their daughter at Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers , New York. In 1960 they settled in Brooklyn, but visited Mexico regularly. Oppen began to write and publish poetry again.
In the 1970s, Oppen brought out his last volume of poetry with the help of his wife, as the first signs of Alzheimer's disease were already showing. In 1984 he died in a nursing home in California.
Prizes and awards
His third volume from the 1960s, Of Being Numerous, from 1968 was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in the poetry category in 1969.
Publications (selection)
- 1934: Discrete Series , with a foreword by Ezra Pound . New York: The Objectivist Press.
- 1962: The Materials . New York: New Directions.
- 2012: German by Norbert Lange : Die Rohstoffe = The Materials , with an afterword by Paul Auster and with comments from the translator; German English. Luxbooks, Wiesbaden, ISBN 978-3-939557-48-7 .
- 1965: This in Which . New York: New Directions.
- 1968: Of Being Numerous . New York: New Directions. Pulitzer Prize, Seal Section, 1969.
- 1972: Seascape: Needle's Eye . Fremont, Mich .: Sumac.
- 1978: Primitive , poem. Santa Barbara: Black Sparrow Press, ISBN 0-876854145 .
- 1990: The Selected Letters of George Oppen. Edited by Rachel Blau DuPlessis. Durham and London: Duke University Press.
- 1996: Alpine , poems. Perishable Press, Mount Horeb , Wisconsin, USA
- 2001: New Collected Poems . New edition New York: New Directions 2008.
- 2007: Selected Prose, Daybooks, and Papers. Edited by Stephen Cope. Berkeley et al. a .: University of California Press.
- 2012: Speaking with George Oppen. Interviews with the Poet and Mary Oppen, 1968–1987. Edited by Richard Swigg. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
Literature on George Oppen (selection)
- Burton Hatlen, Ed .: George Oppen. Man and Poet. Orono: National Poetry Foundation 1981.
- Mary Oppen: Meaning a Life. To Autobiography. Second edition Santa Rosa: Black Sparrow Press 1990.
- Michael Heller: Speaking the Estranged. Essays on the Work of George Oppen. Cambridge: Salt 2008.
- Stefan Ripplinger : “Reification. Poet, communist and carpenter - George Oppen on his hundredth birthday ”. concrete , 4/2008.
Web links
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Oppen, George |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Oppenheimer, George (maiden name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American poet and author |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 24, 1908 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | New Rochelle , New York |
| DATE OF DEATH | 7th July 1984 |
| Place of death | California |