Pulitzer Prize Poetry Winner
Of Being Numerous
by George Oppen
Summary
The title serial poem turns a philosophical, fragmentary lyric onto the riddle of how an individual exists within a city and a populace. Oppen writes in stripped, weighted lines whose silences carry as much meaning as their language, in keeping with his Objectivist roots. The work stands as one of the great political-philosophical long poems of the century.
”
Historical Context & Significance
Oppen was an "Objectivist" who had given up poetry for 25 years for activism and carpentry before returning to win.