The Materials

The Materials. George Oppen, the title of a book of poems. His second book, that is--published 28 years after the first--with all that had happened in between. The 1930's, World War II, the McCarthy period. Oppen had chosen not to write--or rather, he decided to face obligations that he'd determined went beyond writing. Labor organizing, for one, social justice--and a clarity as to political action. Which eventually by some miracle, returned him to poetry.

I first heard his voice on the radio--KPFA, maybe 1973--then met him by chance at a gathering in Berkeley--one of Stan and Anne Rice's parties. Oppen's tall, narrow frame, his crag-like features--a Jewish face, but from San Francisco--the simple directness--the clarity--of his words, like one of the sloops he loved to sail, by himself, leaning back over the rail, tacking into the wind. He and Mary made a remarkable couple--so different, yet so fitted for each other--a couple in an impossible sense--as if none of the other forces in the world could intervene.

_____

The case above also brings an interval. Dark hallway at the University of Warsaw--it's late summer, 1968, almost all the students gone, just one older woman with a wicker broom, sweeping the worn marble stairs.

_____

No, the case here comes from Berkeley--it’s part of the University, too. Picked out at Richmond salvage, I'm guessing--maybe discarded by the entomologists. It feels like it's contained things for a very long time. In its current life, a set of building materials--construction examples, Dana. I'd never looked at them very carefully before. Down the Fourth Floor hallway, in the alcove leading to my old classroom, Room 491. Another set of Wurster numbers--meaningful if you've lived them.

There's a new plate by the door, plexiglass, with sharply defined edges. The numbers are repeated below in braile. A thoughtful touch, until you realize they’re probably required by code. I believe the room is now used by Urban Design--looks rather formal that way. A regular classroom...

Braile numbers for the old Visual Studies studio... But the markings on the wall outside look very much the same…

.