Oppen, George - Denise Levertov (essay date 1963)

Denise Levertov (essay date 1963)

SOURCE: “Poetry: Pure and Complex,” in The New Leader, Vol. XLVI, No. 4, February 18, 1963, pp. 25-6.

[In the following essay, Levertov describes Oppen as a poet whose works represent process rather than artistic completion.]

The Materials is the first book George Oppen has published since his early work appeared in 1934. I do not propose to compare his poems with Reznikoff's simply because the two books have come out at the same time and from the same publisher. I do, however, want to mention that though these two men are old friends there seems never to have been any overlapping or merging of their voices.

In Oppen the influence of William Carlos Williams is apparent. He does not imitate Williams; but he is plainly indebted to him, which is closer to being a virtue than a vice. Among Oppens poems are some one could call affirmative—“Product,” for instance, which speaks of the...

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