Z-site: A Companion to the Works of Louis Zukofsky
 
 

 

 

 

 

Z-site: A Companion to the Works of Louis Zukofsky
has a new address at: http://www.z-site.net

You will be redirected to this address in seconds
or else click on the above link.

 

 

 

 

 
Research
The “Objectivists” and Their Publications

The “Objectivists” and Their Publications

Mark Scroggins

 

The notion of the “Objectivists” as posse of four – Zukofsky, Oppen, Reznikoff, and Rakosi (with Williams, Niedecker, and Bunting as occasional outriders) – is largely a retrospective construction of literary history, dating from L. S. Dembo’s 1968 series of interviews with Zukofsky, Oppen, Reznikoff, and Rakosi, and their 1969 publication in Contemporary Literature as “The ‘Objectivist’ Poet: Four Interviews.” It is clear, as the contents of the February 1931 “Objectivists” 1931 issue of Poetry magazine and the 1932 An “Objectivists” Anthology (both edited by Zukofsky) indicate, that the term “Objectivist” was originally intended as something quite other than a name for a given half-dozen poets. Those contents are as follows:

 

Poetry: A Magazine of Verse 37.1 (February 1931): “Objectivists” 1931

 

 

 

Carl Rakosi

 

            Before You

 

                        Orphean Lost

237

                        Fluteplayers from Finmarken

238

                        Unswerving Marine

239

                        Before You

240

Louis Zukofsky

 

            "A"  Seventh Movement: "There are different techniques" 

242

Howard Weeks

            What Furred Creature    

246

Robert McAlmon

 

            Fortuno Carraccioli: A Satire

247

Joyce Hopkins1

 

            University: Old-Time

251

Charles Reznikoff

 

            A Group of Verse

 

            I. "All day the pavement has been black" 

252

            II. "From my window I could not see the moon,"

252

            III. "Among the heaps of brick and plaster lies"

252

            IV. "Rooted among roofs, their smoke among the clouds,"

252

            V. "What are you doing in our street among the automobiles,"

252

            VI. "Of our visitors—I do not know which I dislike most:"

253

Norman Macleod

 

            Song for the Turquoise People

253

Kenneth Rexroth

 

            Last Page of a Manuscript

254

S. Theodore Hecht

 

            Table for Christmas

255

George A. Oppen

            1930's

 

            I. "Thus / Hides the / Parts—"

256

            II. "The knowledge not of sorrow, you were saying, but of boredom,"

256

Harry Roskolenkier

 

            Supper in an Alms-House

257

Whittaker Chambers

 

            October 21st, 1926

258

Henry Zolinsky

 

            Horatio 

259

Basil Bunting

 

            The Word2

260

Jesse Lowenthal

 

            Match  

261

From Arthur Rimbaud, trans. Emanuel Carnevali

 

            Wakes – III

262

            To One Reason 

262

John Wheelwright

 

            Slow Curtain

263

Richard Johns

 

            The Sphinx

264

Martha Champion

265

            Poem

 

William Carlos Williams

 

            The Botticellian Trees

266

 

 

Louis Zukofsky

 

            Program: "Objectivists" 1931

268-272

            Sincerity and Objectification: With Special Reference to the Work of Charles Reznikoff

272-285

Symposium

 

            Hymn, by Parker Tyler   

285-286

            Left Instantly Designs, by Charles Henri Ford

286-287

            Note on the two poems above, by P.T. and C.H.F.

287

            Note by the Editor, by L.Z.

287-288

            In rebuttal, by P.T. and C.H.F.

288

            The Horses of Her Hair, by Samuel Putnam

288-289

Three Poems by André Salmon — I, by René Taupin, trans. LZ

289-293

Notes3

294-295

 

*  *  *

 

An "Objectivists" Anthology, ed. Louis Zukofsky (Le Beausset, Var, France; New York, PO Box 3 Station F: To, Publishers, 1932)

 

 

 

Louis Zukofsky

 

            Preface: "Recencies" in Poetry [datelined "The Gotham Book Mart, New York, Aug. 1931"]

9-25

Dedication [to Ezra Pound]

27

 

 

I.

 

 

            quotation from René Taupin

31

Basil Bunting

 

            Attis; Or, Something Missing [section III]

33-35

Mary Butts

 

            Corfe

36-39

Frances Fletcher

 

            A Chair

40

Robert McAlmon

 

            Historical Reminiscence

41-42

George Oppen

 

            1930's ["White.  From the"]

43

Ezra Pound

 

            "Gentle Jheezus sleek and wild" 

44-45

            Words for Roundel in Double Canon

45-46

Carl Rakosi

 

            A Journey Away [9 sections]

47-52

Kenneth Rexroth

 

            Prolegomena to a Theodicy

53-78

            Fundamental Disagreement with Two Contemporaries

79-86

Charles Reznikoff4

 

            Rashi

87-91

            from My Country, 'Tis of Thee

92-97

William Carlos Williams

 

            I. "I make really very little money."

98

            II. "It is a living coral"

98-101

            III. This Florida: 1924

101-104

            IV. Down-Town  

104-105

            V. "On hot days"

105

            VI. "The pure products of America"

105-108

            VII. A Morning Imagination of Russia

108-111

Louis Zukofsky

 

            "A"

 

            First and Second Movements: "Come, ye Daughters"

112-120

            Third and Fourth Movements: "Out of the voices"

121-128

            Fifth and Sixth Movements: "And I:"

128-152

            Seventh Movement: "There are different techniques"

152-155

 

 

II.

 

 

Forrest Anderson

 

            Arrangement from "Land's End"  

159

T.S. Eliot

 

            Marina 

160-161

Frances Fletcher

 

            Carmen et Error (Ovid in Exile)

162

Robert McAlmon

 

            Child-Blithely

163

Carl Rakosi

 

            Parades

164

Kenneth Rexroth

 

            The Place for Yvor Winters

165-168

Charles Reznikoff

 

            The English in Virginia April 1607

169-170

R.B.N. Warriston

 

            I. "No, not your beauty—"

171

            II. "For handsome others"

171-172

            III. "Hope so intricately" 

172

            IV. "Seriously, with pain"

172

William Carlos Williams

 

            The Jungle

173

            On Gay Wallpaper

173-174

            3. "Nothing is lost; the white / shellwhite"

174-175

            In the 'Sconset Bus

175-176