George Oppen quotes
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“Those who are not very concerned with art want poems or pictures to record for them something they already know - as one might want a picture of a place he loves.”
-- George Oppen -
“The first question at that time in poetry was simply the question of honesty, of sincerity.”
-- George Oppen -
“There are situations which cannot honorably be met by art.”
-- George OppenSource : George Oppen (2008). “Selected Prose, Daybooks, and Papers”, p.36, Univ of California Press
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“Clarity, clarity, surely clarity is the most beautiful thing in the world, A limited, limiting clarity I have not and never did have any motive of poetry But to achieve clarity.”
-- George OppenSource : George Oppen (2008). “New Collected Poems”, p.193, New Directions Publishing
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“A pure mathematical series would be one in which each term is derived from the preceding term by a rule.”
-- George OppenSource : George Oppen, Michael Davidson (2002). “New Collected Poems”, p.357, New Directions Publishing
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“Things explain each other, not themselves.”
-- George OppenSource : George Oppen, Rachel Blau DuPlessis (1990). “The Selected Letters of George Oppen”, p.115, Duke University Press
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“It is necessary to study these words you have written, for the words have a longer history than you have and say more than you know.”
-- George Oppen -
“The self is no mystery, the mystery is / That there is something for us to stand on”
-- George OppenSource : George Oppen, Robert Creeley (2003). “George Oppen: Selected Poems”, p.80, New Directions Publishing
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“The meaning of a poem is in the cadences and the shape of the lines and the pulse of the thought which is given by those lines.”
-- George Oppen
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“Can you remember? when we thought the poets taught how to live?”
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“Poets are mysterious, but a poet when all is said is not much more mysterious than a banker.”
Source : Allen Tate (1999). “Essays of Four Decades”, Isi Books
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“When I record something, I'll take a drive and just listen”
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Source : Carsten Jensen (2011). “We, the Drowned”, p.135, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
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Source : "A Dancing Queen Extends Her Reign" by Dave Itzkoff, www.nytimes.com. May 5, 2013.
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