SOURCE: “A Test of Images: George Oppen's ‘Vulcan,’” in George Oppen, Man and Poet, edited by Burton Hatlan, The National Poetry Foundation, Inc., 1981, pp. 257-64.

In the following essay, Kail explores Oppen's poem “Vulcan” in an attempt to determine if the validity of Oppen's thought can be established through a study of his imagery.

I would like to put a poem of George Oppen's to the test, an examination using his own criterion that “a test of images can be a test of whether one's thought is valid, whether one can establish in a series of images, of experiences … whether or not one will consider the concept of humanity to be valid, something that is, or else have to regard it as being simply a word.”¹ If I understand this correctly, the test of truth (or at least of “sincerity”) in a poem is its ability to establish...