Primitif

by George Oppen

George Oppen's ninth collection of verse. Oppen won the Pulitzer Prize in 1979. His poetry was praised and admired by Ezra Pound.

Genres: Poetry

Paperback

First published April 1, 1979

About the author

George Oppen (April 24, 1908 – July 7, 1984) was an American poet, best known as one of the members of the Objectivist group of poets. He abandoned poetry in the 1930s for political activism, and later moved to Mexico to avoid the attentions of the House Un-American Activities Committee. He returned to poetry—and to the United States—in 1958, and received the Pulitzer Prize in 1969.

Reviews

[Konstantin R.]

[rating = B]
This is an interesting collection. Although I have never heard of Mr. Oppen, I would like to know more about him and his poetry. This collection is about speaking and about writing and what life holds in its recesses, which can only be accessed by writing about them. His use of spacing and his use of enjambment are unique in the way that one line will be broken or continue without any thought to the actual phrasing of the thought. In one line two different ideas will begin or end without punctuation. But this is not a bad thing. Reading it, one gets use to making one's own phrasing and understands what the poet is trying to say. A very neat and telling collection.

[Mat]

Fantastic!
A singular music.
At last the penny drops ... and I get Oppen I think.

A few years ago I read his first book, Discrete Series, and although I found some parts intriguing I was for the most part underwhelmed… and unimpressed.

Then I tried the posthumously published 21 Poems, which I enjoyed more than Discrete Series, but still I felt like I didn’t quite get Oppen.

NOW, reading this through twice, I immediately picked up on the music of the lines; it’s both musical and imagistic.

Now I can see why Pound admired him and caught glimpses of why Zukofsky was jealous of his popularity.

Highly recommended for poetry lovers.

[Yastika]

I usually like Oppen but I didn't get this book mostly I think. sometimes a soundy image hazed up in my mind tho.
"in the appalling
seas language
lives and wakes us together
out of sleep the poem
opens its dazzling whispering hands" was hype
let the magic infants speak etc.
"depth
of the ship in that
light into all
that never
knew me alone
in the sea fellow
me feminine
winds as you pass" was beautiful

[Ash]

Almost gave this 2 stars because of it being Oppen, and the parts of his writing I enjoy that remain intact (mainly through hard silences, his medial caesuras in lines of even just a few words, other long standing elements of his style) but I didn't, because were it not Oppen, I would never have read anything past the first 2 poems. It sounds like someone offering grand astrological, new age wisdom that is ultimately void and uninspired to boot. Example:

The Tongues

of appearance
speak in the
journey immense
journey there is loss in denying
that force the moments the years
even of death lost
in denying
that force the words
out of that whirlwind his
and not his strange
words surround him


The only lines (lines, not poems) I truly liked were these from "Gold on Oak Leaves":

in the sea fellow
me feminine

winds as you pass

The overlapping ideas created by the enjambment that make the reader have to reorient automatically in order to even keep reading are very good and startling, creating that double-think double-take effect (sea as a fellow (as in friend,) fellow meaning 'same-as' connecting the sea and the speaker, "fellow / me" as the speaker themselves, "me feminine" as another description of the speaker, all piled on top of each other -- before even combining all these combinations with all the possibilities of the final line) which is what I really like about his writing is mostly excised in this book for writing similar to the poem quoted above. Though, even in THAT poem, he does his declaration-negation thing I like so much ("his / and not his") but ultimately it just makes me want to go read "Route" and the whole of Of Being Numerous again.

[James]

page the magic
infants speak