A selection of innovative poems by the groundbreaking Pulitzer Prize winner.The Selected Poems is a unique selection of Oppen's work from the seven books he published during his lifetime. Edited by one of our most respected contemporary poets, Robert Creeley, who provides an informative introduction, George Oppen's Selected Poems includes Oppen's only known essay, "A Mind's Own Place," as well as "Twenty-Six Fragments" which Oppen wrote on envelopes and scraps of paper and posted to his wall, edited by Stephen Cope. Also incorporated is a helpful chronology and bibliography of his writings by Rachel Blau DuPlessis, celebrated editor of Oppen's letters. On his death, Hugh Kenner wrote, "George Oppen, gentlest of men...prized what took time, found the grain of materials, exacted accuracy." Oppen's Selected Poems is the perfect text for teaching and a remarkable window into a world of lasting light and clarity. About the Author:: George Oppen (1908-1984) was born in New Rochelle, New York. His first book of poems was published in 1934 by The Objectivist Press, after which he stopped writing poetry for nearly twenty-five years in favor of political activism (for some years during the McCarthy era he was even self-exiled in Mexico). New Directions published many of his books—Of Being Numerous won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry—and in 2002 brought out George Oppen: New Collected Poems, edited by Michael Davidson.