Charles Reznikoff

Ranen Omer-Sherman (University of Louisville)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

Born 31 Aug 1894
Died 22 Jan 1976
Activity 1914-1976

Places

Born in United States
Active in United States

Activities

Primary

Autobiographer
Historian / Chronicler
Novelist
Poet

Resources

Charles Reznikoff’s early 20^th century urban poetics has had a profound influence on the ethical as well as ethnic expansiveness of American poetry. A wide range of contemporary poets, including Charles Bernstein, Robert Duncan, Robert Creeley, Allen Ginsberg (who in late career sought to claim Reznikoff as a sort of poetic-father), and Elaine Feinstein were profoundly influenced by Reznikoff’s incisive arrangement of detail, extraordinary understatement, and compassionate voice. At various times, these poets have admired the anti-essentialist quality with which Reznikoff demonstrated the way a poet of “common experience” might challenge the Wordsworthian notion of “voice” as common language, and introduce a …

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2114 words

Citation: Omer-Sherman, Ranen. "Charles Reznikoff". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 28 April 2004 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3755, accessed 25 November 2024.]

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