With an ear tuned to the most delicate musical effects, an eye for exact and heterogeneous details, and a mind bent on experiment, Louis Zukofsky was preeminent among the radical Objectivist poets of the 1930s. This is the first collection to draw on the full range of Zukofsky's poetry----containing short lyrics, versions of Catullus, and generous selections from "A" , his 24-part "poem of a life"--and provides a superb introduction to a modern master of whom the critic Guy Davenport has written: "Every living American ...
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With an ear tuned to the most delicate musical effects, an eye for exact and heterogeneous details, and a mind bent on experiment, Louis Zukofsky was preeminent among the radical Objectivist poets of the 1930s. This is the first collection to draw on the full range of Zukofsky's poetry----containing short lyrics, versions of Catullus, and generous selections from "A" , his 24-part "poem of a life"--and provides a superb introduction to a modern master of whom the critic Guy Davenport has written: "Every living American poet worth a hoot has stood aghast before the steel of his integrity." The most formally radical poet to emerge among the second wave of American modernists, Louis Zukofsky continues to influence younger poets attracted to the rigor, inventiveness, and formal clarity of his work. Born on New York's Lower East Side in 1904 to emigrant parents, Zukofsky achieved early recognition when he edited an issue of Poetry devoted to the Objectivist poets, including George Oppen and Charles Reznikoff. In addition to an abundance of short lyrics and a sound-based version of the complete poems of Catullus, he worked for most of his adult life on the long poem "A" of which he said: "In a sense the poem is an autobiography: the words are my life." Zukofsky's work has been described as difficult although he himself said: "I try to be as simple as possible." In the words of editor Charles Bernstein, "This poetry leads with sound and you can never go wrong following the sound sense. . . . Zukofsky loved to create patterns, some of which are apparent and some of which operate subliminally. . . . Each word, like a stone dropped in a pond, creates a ripple around it. The intersecting ripples on the surface of the pond are the pattern of the poem." Here for the first time is a selection designed to introduce the full range of Zukofsky's extraordinary poetry. About the American Poets Project Elegantly designed in compact editions, printed on acid-free paper, and textually authoritative, the American Poets Project makes available the full range of the American poetic accomplishment, selected and introduced by today's most discerning poets and critics.
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The American poet Louis Zukofsky (1904 -- 1978) was born in New York City to Orthodox Jewish immigrants. He attended Columbia University and soon became a leading practitioner of modernist poetry. Zukofsky's poetry is difficult. My interest in Zukofsky stemmed from my admiration for the work of his friend, also a child of immigrants, the fellow- poet Charles Reznikoff (1894 -- 1976). Zukofsky and Reznikoff were both part of the "Objectivist" school of modern American poetry. Zukofsky wrote an essay about his friend in which he identified the crucial elements of Objectivist poetry as sincerity and objectivity.
Edited by Charles Bernstein, professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania, this book of Zukofsky's Selected Poems (2006) offers a broad and challenging introduction to Zukofsky's work which is notoriously resistant to being excerpted or paraphrased. Bernstein's introduction offers wise advice in reading the volume. Readers should concentrate on the musicality and flow of the language rather than on puzzling out the meaning. They should try to see the work and the volume as a whole. And they should not get discouraged. I had tried reading Zukofsky before and given up. I almost gave up again with this volume but was able to become involved with much of the poetry.
Zukofsky had a long career, and this anthology spans his writing from the early 1920s to just before the poet's death. It is best to read the book straight through rather than to skip around. The selections include a variety of long and short poems together with Zukofsky's translations of the Roman poet Catullus.
The poetry is varied. It manages to be both personal and to lack reference to self. The poems are allusive with a great deal of word play. His parents and his wife and son play large roles in the book. The poems respond to the Depression and Zukofsky was for a time a Marxist. They look back upon the Judaism of his parents and upon the continued role of Judaism in Zukofsky's secular life. Zukofsky was influenced by Marx early on. The influence of Spinoza on Zukofsky and on his secular Judaism ultimately was much stronger. The poetry is involved with the beauty of music and the beauty of language. The poems almost always adopt a particular form, sometimes traditional such as the sonnet. More often Zukofsky's form involves writing five-word lines and stanzas of a fixed length.
Three lengthy poems are represented in this collection, and Zukofsky's work revolves around them. The "Poem Beginning 'The'" is an early work which brought Zukofsky to the attention of Ezra Pound. It is excerpted here. A poem titled "4 Other Countries" dates from the mid-1950s and is given in full. Zukofsky's masterwork which occupied him from 1928 to 1974 is titled simply "A". It runs over 800 pages and consists of 24 parts, one for each hour of the day. The poem is meant to depict Zukofsky's life. The poem has been described as the most "hermetic" in English -- highly personal and impenetrable. This anthology offers substantial excerpts from several parts of "A" to give the reader a flavor of the work.
The short poems and the Catullus translations are on the whole more accessible than the longer poems. Late in his life, Zukofsky composed a work titled "80 Flowers" which I struggled to read at one time. Excerpts are presented here. These poems are highly obscure but moving.
I struggled with this book but was able to enjoy most of it with the exception of part 23 of "A", a poem of 100o with five words in each line. Part 23 is reproduced in full in this book. I found it opaque.
With the warning against excerpting Zukofsky, here is a short passage from "A" part 12 about Zukofsky's father that I found moving.
"Rabbi Pinchas: It teaches a man,
There is no one who is not
every minute
Taught by his soul.
A disciple: If that is so
Why does it not rule?
Rabbi Pinchas: The soul teaches,
It never repeats. "
This book of Zukofsky's selected poems is part of the American Poets Project published by the Library of America. The short, beautifully produced books in this series perform an invaluable service in introducing readers to, in its words, "the full scope of our poetic heritage". Readers may enjoy the opportunity to explore the variety and creativity of poetry written in the United States through these volumes. Zukofsky's work, while it will likely never be popular, has an esteemed place in the American practice of poetry.
