George Oppen

oppenGeorge Oppen is a poet who seems to have faded from view. But his sensibility is intriguing.  His focus was on simplicity–using language to point to the experience as opposed to itself. Here’s a snippet:

Pedestrian

What generations could have dreamed
This grandchild of shopping streets, her eyes

In the buyer’s light, the store lights
Brighter than the lighthouses, brighter than moonrise

From the salt harbor so rich
So bright her city

In a soil of pavement, a mesh of wires where she walks
In the new winter among enormous buildings.

George Oppen