George Oppen's Collected Poems is … the record of a lifelong confrontation between an unimpeachably free spirit's sense of order and "a world of things"…. [His poems] are built out of words themselves. Oppen's lines move in fits and starts; they are slowly accrued "discrete series" of phrases, chains of associations which aim directly, often painfully, at an identifiable point. The lesson, the articulations of a meaning, is what matters. Words, imperfect and sometimes untrustworthy, are only the means to this end…. (p. 167)

The conception of the poet's role as that of the teacher accounts for the openly, even severely didactic tone of much of Oppen's work, though the sobriety and ponderousness are occasionally relieved by pure word-pictures, which Oppen uses to beautiful effect…. I suppose he is most approachable through his imagery, though the rhythm can also be seductively real. But Oppen is probably destined never to be...