SOURCE: “Conversation with George and Mary Oppen,” in The Texas Quarterly, Vol. XXI, No. 1, Spring, 1978, pp. 35-52.

In the following interview which took place on May 25th, 1975, Powers talks with George and Mary Oppen about their lives, their art, and their impressions of other artists.

[Powers:] Let me begin by asking you about the poem Drawing in Discrete Series. May I quote you:

Not by growth                     but the Paper, turned, contains This entire volume 

Were you making a statement about the fragmentary nature of the poem and by extension of the fragmentary nature of perception and truth?

[George Oppen:] [Hereafter referred to as G.O.] In a lot of the poems that's said, isn't it? I don't know that I was thinking of it there. I was just speaking about “pointing,” the poems have that quality of simply pointing at the thing as a way of constructing a...