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Charles Reznikoff
(1894-1976)

Active: 1914-1976 in USA, North America

By Ranen Omer-Sherman (University of Miami)

Indexing Data:

  • Active In: USA, North America
  • Born In: USA, North America
  • Activity: Poet, Novelist, Prose Writer, Historian, Autobiographer

Life, Works and Times

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Charles Reznikoff’s early 20th 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

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First published 28 April 2004

Citation: Omer-Sherman, Ranen. "Charles Reznikoff". The Literary Encyclopedia. 28 April 2004.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3755, accessed 9 February 2010.]

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