SOURCE: A review of “Phœnix Nest,” in Saturday Review of Literature, Vol. X, No. 36, March 24, 1934, p. 580.

In the following review, Benet denigrates Oppen's verse and challenges Pound's endorsement of his work.

A Serious Craftsman

That is what Ezra Pound, in his preface, calls George Oppen, author of Discrete Series. He appears to think that the hasty reviewer may say that Mr. Oppen writes a good deal like William Carlos Williams. He sees a difference which he does not “expect any great horde of readers to notice.” His opinion of Mr. Oppen's work is that here is “a sensibility which is not every man's sensibility, and which has not been got out of any other man's books.” If that were literally true. Mr. Oppen would be a paragon indeed. I know of no writer who has not got something out of other men's books. Certainly anyone's sensibility is...