SOURCE: “Together,” in Parnassus: Poetry in Review, Vol. 4, No. 2, Spring-Summer, 1976, pp. 83-95.

In the following review of Oppen’sCollected Poems, Corman praises the poet’s ability to share his experience through language.

The facts—as they say—as the publishers provide: “born in New Rochelle, New York on April 24, 1908 … his first book in 1934 (Discrete Series) … his second (The Materials) 1962 … most of his life in Brooklyn … in the late 60s to San Francisco where he now lives with his wife, Mary … boating enthusiast … summers on the Maine coast.”

Added to this the known political activism (more apt perhaps would be communal concern) and the removal to Mexico when the postwar witch-hunt got heavy. A decade or more drawn from poetry—but the poetry that has followed reveals there was no real hiatus.

He has declared his wedge into “modern” poetry through Louis Zukofsky's early work. But when one...