George Oppen quotes

things explain each other, Not themselves. (George Oppen)
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. View quote
George Oppen
The first question at that time in poetry was simply the question of honesty, of sincerity. View quote
George Oppen
There are situations which cannot honorably be met by art. View quote
George Oppen
A pure mathematical series would be one in which each term is derived from the preceding term by a rule. View quote
George Oppen
Truth, also is the pursuit of it. View quote
George Oppen
A discrete series is a series of terms each of which is empirically derived, each one of which is empirically true. And this is the reason for the fragmentary character of those poems. View quote
George Oppen
The situation of the Old Left was the theory of Socialist Realism, etc. It seemed pointless to argue. We stayed carefully away from people who wrote for the New Masses. View quote
George Oppen
And we saw the seed, The minuscule Sequoia seed In the museum by the tremendous slab Of the tree. And imagined the seed In soil and the growth quickened So that we saw the seed reach out, forcing Earth thru itself into bark, wood, the green Needles of a redwood until the tree Stood in the room without soil- How much of the earth's Crust has lived The seed's violence! The shock is metaphysical. View quote
George Oppen
They have lost the metaphysical sense Of the future, they feel themselves The end of a chain Of lives, single lives And we know that lives Are single And cannot defend The metaphysic On which rest The boundaries Of our distances. View quote
George Oppen
'O city ladies' Your coats wrapped, Your hips a possession Your shoes arched Your walk is sharp Your breasts Pertain to lingerie. (George Oppen)
The steel worker on the girder Learned not to look down, and does his work And there are words we have learned Not to look at, Not to look for substance Below them. But we are on the verge Of vertigo. View quote
George Oppen
Perhaps what I would like is a truly democratic culture. Not a polemic nor a moralistic culture in the arts but a culture which permits one man to speak to another honestly and modestly and in freedom and to say what he thinks and what he feels, to express his doubts and his fears, his immoral as well as his moral impulses, to say what he thinks is true and what he thinks is false, and what he likes and what he does not like. What I am against is that we should all engage in the most vigorous and most polemic lying to each other for each other's benefit. - Who could have the conceit, the self-confidence to believe that that is what we should do throughout all the rest of human history? View quote
George Oppen