People are full with systems of notations, of course. Yes, some of the emotionality of the rhythms may be lost. But “Crevasse Fought // No man but the fragments of metal,” and just the fragments and the metal and the fighting’s there. The language - there are the things you say. Oppen: The language an Englishman knows, as an American knows, is - there you go, right on. And there you are, starting all over again.
Homberger: An Englishman might say for us the language isn’t problematic. I think the poem - the words were the same. That was you caught in a foxhole in Alsace. It’s “ Father,” seventeen, “Crevasse Father ” - the bottom of sixteen - “Crevasse Fought // No man.” The most dramatic part of that poem is on sixteen. What would happen if you read some poem my way - “ Father I must get out here” ? It won’t be interesting to people who are not involved in the techniques of poetry. It would be interesting, if any poetic experts are listening to this program, if you should now read a poem to me, and see how different it is. This is “Song, The Winds of Downhill.” If “the words // would with and take on substantial // meaning handholds footholds // to dig in one’s heels,” can we rely on something like the music? And I’m not interested, after all. If I could find this poem, it’s written directly to that, and it’s a short poem, so it’s better than discussing it. Now, as for - it’s a problem, of course it is a problem. But their impact, their musical impact, remains the same. We mean to isolate words and to place words so that they must be understood, even if precisely the sound is not the same. We hope at least - we think an enunciation can be wrong and an accent can be wrong. I think, however, I said before, we really are not helpless in the hands of the language.
A man in Maine - I once saw a young boy in Maine read Alexander Pope, and he didn’t read it as iambics, and he wasn’t aware of them as iambics. It’s not only a question of an Englishman - how a Southern American reads it. William Cookson wrote me a questionnaire about that, and I’ve been in trouble about it. Oppen: I know, because the question has been raised. But can you actually hear it? Can you actually hear the rhythm, the movement, the length of the line? George Oppen: Įric Homberger: This is a poetry that no Englishman could have possibly written. Swigg also provided us with this transcript. Thanks to Richard Swigg, PennSound is pleased to make available a recording of George Oppen reading poems and talking with Eric Homberger at the University of East Anglia, May 7, 1973.
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