George Oppen Quotes
There are situations which cannot honorably be met by art.
Oppen, George. Interview with L. S. Dembo. Contemporary Literature, vol. 10, no. 2, 1969, p. 174.
Miller refused to answer with this statement. He was charged and convicted of contempt of Congress and sentenced to a year in jail. His conviction was overturned on appeal.
Already receiving tribute for American immunity from the Barbary pirates, the Bey (provincial governor) added a provision to the tribute treaty requiring the Americans to give a barrel of gunpowder for every cannon shot fired in salute of arriving American ships. The American consuls objected saying it insulted their country’s honor:
George Oppen was an American poet, best known as one of the members of the Objectivist group of poets. He abandoned poetry in the 1930s for political activism and moved to Mexico in 1950 to avoid the attentions of the House Un-American Activities Committee. He returned to poetry—and to the United States—in 1958, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1969.
