Quotes By George Oppen

The situation of the Old Left was the theory of Socialist Realism, etc. It seemed pointless to argue. We stayed carefully away from people who wrote for the New Masses.

There are situations which cannot honorably be met by art.

Clarity, clarity, surely clarity is the most beautiful thing in the world, A limited, limiting clarity I have not and never did have any motive of poetry But to achieve clarity.

A pure mathematical series would be one in which each term is derived from the preceding term by a rule.

The first question at that time in poetry was simply the question of honesty, of sincerity.

Things explain each other, not themselves.

A discrete series is a series of terms each of which is empirically derived, each one of which is empirically true. And this is the reason for the fragmentary character of those poems.

Truth, also is the pursuit of it.