DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

In the Common Dream of George Oppen

Joseph Bradshaw author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Shearsman Books

Published:15th Mar '11

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

In the Common Dream of George Oppen cover

The life of George Oppen (1908-1984) thwarted the expectations of a literary career. After publishing his first book at 26 with a preface by Ezra Pound, Oppen gave up poetry to become an organizer for the Communist Party. At the age of 37 he served at the front lines in WWII, considering it his duty as a Jew to fight fascism. After receiving a Purple Heart and returning to the U.S. he immediately was forced into hiding, due to his Red past in the age of McCarthyism. After a 25-year hiatus from poetry he returned to the art in his 50s, writing and publishing seven books, one of which-Of Being Numerous-won a Pulitzer Prize. Comprised of both poetry and essays, Joseph Bradshaw's In the Common Dream of George Oppen makes its premise to imagine what bodies of work might exist in Oppen's fabled 25 year silence. By turns, the book forcefully projects a singularly fabricated biography onto the figure of Oppen, then self-reflexively retracts, divagating through a poet's desire for mentorship and community. Bringing in everything from ruminations on blurry memories of Idaho's landscape, to dialogues held across centuries & continents with the likes of figures such as the Elephant Man, In the Common Dream of George Oppen brushes up against the fragile boundary between the finished and the unfinished poem, or a finished or unfinished life.

ISBN: 9781848611498

Dimensions: 140mm x 216mm x 5mm

Weight: 126g

90 pages