Charles Reznikoff
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Charles Reznikoff (August 31, 1894 – January 22, 1976) was an American poet best known for his long work, ''Testimony: The United States (1885–1915), Recitative'' (1934–1979). The term
Objectivist Objectivism is a philosophical system developed by Russian-American writer and philosopher Ayn Rand. She described it as "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement ...
was coined for him. The multi-volume ''Testimony'' was based on court records and explored the experiences of immigrants, black people and the urban and rural poor in the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He followed this with ''Holocaust'' (1975), based on court testimony about
Nazi death camps Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (german: Vernichtungslager), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocaust. The v ...
during
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. In 1930 Reznikoff married
Marie Syrkin Marie Syrkin (March 23, 1899 – February 2, 1989) was an American writer, translator, educator, and Zionist activist.Fowler, Glenn (February 3, 1989).Marie Syrkin, 89; Author and Teacher Promoted Zionism" ''New York Times''. Biography Born in Be ...
, a prominent
Zionist Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after ''Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...
and friend and biographer of
Golda Meir Golda Meir, ; ar, جولدا مائير, Jūldā Māʾīr., group=nb (born Golda Mabovitch; 3 May 1898 – 8 December 1978) was an Israeli politician, teacher, and ''kibbutznikit'' who served as the fourth prime minister of Israel from 1969 to 1 ...
. Although they did not live together at all times during the marriage, it lasted until Reznikoff's death. When
Louis Zukofsky Louis Zukofsky (January 23, 1904 – May 12, 1978) was an American poet. He was the primary instigator and theorist of the so-called "Objectivist" poets, a short lived collective of poets who after several decades of obscurity would reemerge a ...
was asked by
Harriet Monroe Harriet Monroe (December 23, 1860 – September 26, 1936) was an American editor, scholar, literary critic, poet, and patron of the arts. She was the founding publisher and long-time editor of ''Poetry'' magazine, first published in 1912. As a ...
to provide an introduction to what became known as the Objectivist issue of ''
Poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...
'', he contributed his essay, ''Sincerity and Objectification: With Special Reference to the Work of Charles Reznikoff''. This established the name of the loose-knit group of second-generation
modernist poets This is a list of major poets of the Modernist movement. English-language Modernist poets *Marion Angus *W. H. Auden *Djuna Barnes *Elizabeth Bishop *Rupert Brooke *Basil Bunting *Hart Crane *E. E. Cummings *H.D. * T. S. Eliot *Robert Frost * ...
and the two characteristics of their poetry: sincerity and objectification.


Early years

Charles Reznikoff was born in 1894 in a
Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...
ish
neighborhood A neighbourhood (British English, Irish English, Australian English and Canadian English) or neighborhood (American English; see spelling differences) is a geographically localised community within a larger city, town, suburb or rural area, ...
in
Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
,
New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...
, the son of immigrants Sarah Yetta (Wolvovsky) Reznikoff and Nathan Reznikoff, who fled the
Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
and its
pogroms A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russian ...
. His Hebrew name was Ezekial, after his maternal grandfather. His father established a family business of manufacturing hats, and Reznikoff briefly worked there as a salesman in his 20s. He was young when he graduated from high school and had already started writing poetry. He spent a year studying journalism in graduate school at the University of Missouri, where Reznikoff realized he was interested in writing more than reporting news. He entered the law school of
New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...
in 1912 and graduated in 1916. He practiced law during the period 1916-1918. In 1918 as the United States had entered the Great War, he entered officer training school. He did not see active service before the end of the
war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...
. Reznikoff worked for a time for his family's business as a hat salesman. He worked for a legal publishing house, where he wrote summaries of court records for legal reference books. This experience was to prove integral to his later writing. From his teens, Reznikoff had been writing poetry, much of it influenced by the
Imagist Imagism was a movement in early-20th-century Anglo-American poetry that favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language. It is considered to be the first organized literary modernism, modernist literary movement in the English language. ...
s. He published his own work, using a second-hand press for which he set the type himself. Throughout his writing life, Reznikoff was always concerned to ensure that his work was published, even at his own expense. This appears to have been inspired by a family story of his grandfather, an unpublished
Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
poet whose manuscripts were destroyed after his death, for fear of their falling into Russian hands.


Objectivist poet

Around the time the Objectivist issue of ''Poetry'' appeared, Reznikoff, Zukofsky and
George Oppen George Oppen (April 24, 1908 – July 7, 1984) 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 o ...
set up TO, Publishers and later the Objectivist Press, essentially to publish their own work. Reznikoff had had some success with his 1930 novel ''By the Waters of Manhattan'', and the new press published three titles by him, two that gathered together previously self-published work and the third a first installment of a long work called ''Testimony''.


Court poetry

In early drafts, ''Testimony'' was a prose retelling of stories that Reznikoff had discovered while working on court records. Reznikoff found these accounts to give him insight into the story of America between 1885 and 1915, both in its diversity and its violence. Tellingly, he chose to omit the judgements, focusing on the twists and turns of the stories. Over the following forty years, Reznikoff worked on refashioning these stories into an extended found poem, which finally ran to some 500 pages over two volumes. He tried to express the stories in as near as possible the words of the participants. As a result, his poetry was almost entirely stripped of
metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wit ...
and of authorial personality and emotion. In this sense, ''Testimony'' can be read as the great monument of Objectivist poetry. The poetic mode which Reznikof developed in writing this work was invaluable to his work on ''Holocaust.'' It was based on testimony in court cases related to the
Nazi concentration camps From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps, (officially) or (more commonly). The Nazi concentration camps are distinguished from other types of Nazi camps such as forced-labor camps, as well as concen ...
and
death camps Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (german: Vernichtungslager), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocaust. The v ...
. He also adopted this style for his poetry that reworked stories from the
Torah The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the s ...
or
Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...
.


Late recognition

Reznikoff lived and wrote in relative obscurity for most of his life, with his work being either self-published or issued by small independent presses. In the 1960s, at the behest of friend and fellow poet
George Oppen George Oppen (April 24, 1908 – July 7, 1984) 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 o ...
, and Oppen's sister June Oppen Degnan,
New Directions Publishers New Directions Publishing Corp. is an independent book publishing company that was founded in 1936 by James Laughlin and incorporated in 1964. Its offices are located at 80 Eighth Avenue (Manhattan), Eighth Avenue in New York City. History New ...
published two books of his poetry: ''By the Waters of Manhattan'' (1962, New Directions/San Francisco Review NDP121), which had an Introduction by
C. P. Snow Charles Percy Snow, Baron Snow, (15 October 1905 – 1 July 1980) was an English novelist and physical chemist who also served in several important positions in the British Civil Service and briefly in the UK government.''The Columbia Encyclope ...
; and ''Testimony: The United States 1885–1890'' (1965, New Directions/San Francisco Review NDP200). But, despite acclaim from fellow poets such as
Hayden Carruth Hayden Carruth (August 3, 1921 – September 29, 2008) was an American poet, literary critic and anthologist. He taught at Syracuse University. Life Hayden Carruth was born in Waterbury, Connecticut and grew up in Woodbury, Connecticut. He gra ...
,
May Swenson Anna Thilda May "May" Swenson (May 28, 1913 – December 4, 1989) was an American poet and playwright. Harold Bloom considered her one of the most important and original poets of the 20th century. The first child of Margaret and Dan Arthur Sw ...
, and
Denise Levertov Priscilla Denise Levertov (24 October 1923 – 20 December 1997) was a British-born naturalised American poet. She was a recipient of the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry. Early life and influences Levertov was born and grew up in Ilford, Ess ...
, critical reaction was generally negative. Reznikoff had to return to self-publishing to see his work in print. In 1971, he was awarded the Morton Dauwen Zabel Prize of $2,500 by The National Institute of Arts and Letters. Around this time, he found a new publisher,
Black Sparrow Press Black Sparrow Press is a New England based independent book publisher, known for literary fiction and poetry. History Black Sparrow was founded in Los Angeles, California, in 1966 by John Martin in order to publish the works of Charles Bukowski ...
. They published ''By the Well of Living and Seeing: New and Selected Poems, 1918-1973'' in 1974. At the time of his death, Reznikoff was correcting proofs of the first volume of the Black Sparrow ''Collected Poems''. In the years immediately following his death, Black Sparrow reprinted all his major poetry and prose works. In addition, it published for the first time his completed novel, ''The Manner “Music”'' (1977), found among his papers.


Representation in other media

In 2013, the band
Joan of Arc Joan of Arc (french: link=yes, Jeanne d'Arc, translit= an daʁk} ; 1412 – 30 May 1431) is a patron saint of France, honored as a defender of the French nation for her role in the siege of Orléans and her insistence on the coronati ...
, with the help of the experimental performance group, Every House Has a Door, created a musical/theater piece based on Reznikoff's ''
Testimony In law and in religion, testimony is a solemn attestation as to the truth of a matter. Etymology The words "testimony" and "testify" both derive from the Latin word ''testis'', referring to the notion of a disinterested third-party witness. La ...
''. The album inspired by his work was called ''Testimonium Songs'' and released on
Polyvinyl Record Co. Polyvinyl Record Co. is an American independent record label headquartered in Champaign, Illinois. The label also has satellite offices in New York, Austin, and the Bay Area. Polyvinyl has put out over 400 releases to date. The Polyvinyl roster ...
and
Joyful Noise Recordings Joyful Noise Recordings is an independent record label from Indianapolis, Indiana. The label was founded in 2003 in Bloomington, Indiana by Karl Hofstetter, who also played drums on many of the label's first releases. Joyful Noise maintains an a ...
. The song "Texas Reznikoff" by the singer-songwriter
Mitski Mitski Miyawaki (born Mitsuki Laycock; September 27, 1990), known professionally by the mononym Mitski, is a Japanese-born American singer-songwriter. Mitski self-released her first two albums, '' Lush'' (2012) and '' Retired from Sad, New Caree ...
, from her album ''
Bury Me at Makeout Creek ''Bury Me at Makeout Creek'' (stylized in all lowercase) is the third studio album by Japanese-American indie rock musician Mitski, released through Double Double Whammy on November 11, 2014. The album was written entirely by Mitski, with producti ...
'' (2014), refers to Reznikoff's work. In a 2016 interview Mitski cited Reznikoff as an influence on her music, and praised his poetic precision and ability to "create a striking image in people’s brains". Reznikoff is mentioned in
Yannick Haenel Yannick Haenel (born 1967, Rennes) is a French writer, cofounder of the literary magazine '. Biography The son of a soldier, Yannick Haenel studied at the Prytanée National Militaire at La Flèche. From 1997, he codirected the magazine ''L ...
's novel ''Tiens ferme ta couronne'' (2017), published in English as '' Hold Fast the Crown''. One of the novel's chapters is named after him.


Works

* ''Nine Plays'' (Charles Reznikoff, 1927). * ''By the Waters of Manhattan''
ovel Bereavement in Judaism () is a combination of ''minhag'' and ''mitzvah'' derived from the Torah and Judaism's classical rabbinic texts. The details of observance and practice vary according to each Jewish community. Mourners In Judaism, the p ...
(Charles Boni, 1930; Rpt. Markus Wiener Publ., 1986; Black Sparrow Press, 2009). * ''Testimony''
rose A rose is either a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They form a group of plants that can be ...
(Objectivist Press, 1934). * ''The Lionhearted: A Story about the Jews in Medieval England'' (1944). * ''Family Chronicle: An Odyssey from Russia to America'' (1963; Rpt. Markus Wiener Publ., 1988). * ''The Complete Poems of Charles Reznikoff, 1918-1975'', 2 vols., ed. Seamus Cooney (Black Sparrow Press, 1976-77; Rpt. single volume 1989). * ''The Manner "Music"''
ovel Bereavement in Judaism () is a combination of ''minhag'' and ''mitzvah'' derived from the Torah and Judaism's classical rabbinic texts. The details of observance and practice vary according to each Jewish community. Mourners In Judaism, the p ...
(Black Sparrow Press, 1977). * ''Holocaust'' (Black Sparrow Press, 1977). * ''Testimony: The United States (1885-1915) Recitative'', 2 vols. (Black Sparrow Press, 1978-79). * ''Selected Letters 1917-1976'', ed. Milton Hindus (Black Sparrow Press, 1997).


References


External links


Charles Reznikoff
Modern American Poetry

PennSound.

MSS 0009
Special Collections & Archives
UC San Diego Library. {{DEFAULTSORT:Reznikoff, Charles 1894 births 1976 deaths American people of Russian-Jewish descent American male poets Jewish American poets New York University School of Law alumni Objectivist poets 20th-century American poets 20th-century American male writers American lawyers 20th-century American Jews