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NO PROGRAMS DURING SUMMER
OUR SCHEDULE STARTS UP IN SEPTEMBER
NOTE: THE AMERICAN POETRY ARCHIVES
WILL BE CLOSED UNTIL JULY 7

~ ~ ~

the Poetry Center
with Friends of the San Francisco Public Library
presents

SALUTE to GEORGE OPPEN

Saturday April 26, 2008
2:00–4:00 pm @ Koret Auditorium
San Francisco Main Public Library
100 Larkin St (Civic Center BART), free

• In honor of George Oppen’s Centenary,
the Salute to George Oppen on April 26
will be the Poetry Center’s sole public event
during the month of April 2008 •

sangdedari

Photo: George Oppen, Berkeley, December 1980; © Richard Friedman.

with Linda Oppen and
featured guest speakers:
Charles Amirkhanian
Anita Barrows
George Evans
Kathleen Fraser (read by Susan Gevirtz)
Maria Gitin
Jack Hirschman
Mark Linenthal
Jack Marshall
Michael Palmer
Doreen Stock

and rare video of George Oppen reading his poetry
from the Poetry Center's American Poetry Archives

•••••••• George Oppen (April 24, 1908 – July 7, 1984) is regarded as one of the great American poets of his generation, with a singular poetic and political awareness manifest in extraordinary, durable works of poetry, a body of work that has exerted a powerful influence on subsequent writing. On the occasion of Oppen’s Centenary, the Poetry Center and the San Francisco Public Library co-present a Salute to George Oppen, featuring rare video footage and audio recordings, from the Poetry Center’s American Poetry Archives, of the poet reading his works (both the earliest known audio recording, February 19 1963, and the earliest known video recording, February 22 1973), along with remembrances and tributes by friends and fellow poets.

George Oppen’s capsule biography includes marriage (1927) to Mary Colby, his lifelong partner; early affiliation with the Objectivist group of poets (Louis Zukofsky, Charles Reznikoff, Carl Rakosi, Lorine Niedecker, William Carlos Williams, among them); the couple’s work as political activists throughout the Great Depression, when he began what became almost 25 years of poetic silence (1934–1958); service in the U.S. Army during World War II, where he was severely wounded in combat; seven years’ exile to Mexico during the McCarthy repressions; and a return to poetry in 1958, resulting in several remarkable books during the 1960s and ’70s. In 1966, the Oppens returned to San Francisco, where George had grown up. In 1969 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in poetry, for Of Being Numerous. Since Oppen’s death in 1984, his audience has increased, and publication of his works has continued, with volumes of Selected Letters, Selected Poems, New Collected Poems, and most recent, George Oppen: Selected Prose, Daybooks, and Papers (just out at the close of 2007).

. .

Of the dawn
Over Frisco
Lighting the large hills
And the very small coves
At their feet, and we
Perched in the dawn wind
Of that coast like leaves
Of the most recent weed——And yet the things

That happen! Signs,
Promises——we took it
As sign, as promise

Still for nothing wavered,
Nothing begged or was unreal, the thing
Happening, filling our eyesight
Out to the horizon——I remember the sky
And the moving sea.

(from "Guest Room," This In Which, New Directions, 1965)

Co-sponsored by Friends of the San Francisco Public Library

The Poetry Center since 1954 has hosted what is likely the longest continuously running poetry reading series in the United States. The Poetry Center presents dozens of public programs throughout the year, on the SFSU campus and at other sites in San Francisco. Our American Poetry Archives houses original audio and video recordings dating from 1954 to the present, available for public access.

Programs are supported by: SFSU College of Humanities, Grants for the Arts-Hotel Tax Fund (City of San Francisco), San Francisco Arts Commission Cultural Equity Grants, the National Endowment for the Arts,
and Friends of the Poetry Center.

Your donation supports our programs.
Checks should be mailed to:
The Poetry Center, SFSU
1600 Holloway Avenue
San Francisco CA 94132
THANK YOU!