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 early 1960s, this situation seemed set to change when New Directions Publishers, at the behest of friend and fellow poet George Oppen, together with Oppen's sister June Oppen Degnan's press San Francisco Review Books published two books, including the first installment of the verse Testimony. However, critical reaction to this book was generally negative and Reznikoff once again found himself publishing his own work.
In 1971, he was awarded the Morton Dauwen Zabel Prize of $2,500 by The National Institute of Arts and Letters. He also found a new publisher around this time, Black Sparrow Press. 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 brought all his major poetry and prose works back into print.
Read more about this topic: Charles Reznikoff
Famous quotes containing the words late and/or recognition:
“The poem refreshes life so that we share,
For a moment, the first idea . . . It satisfies
Belief in an immaculate beginning
And sends us, winged by an unconscious will,
To an immaculate end. We move between these points:
From that ever-early candor to its late plural....”
—Wallace Stevens (18791955)
“Design in art, is a recognition of the relation between various things, various elements in the creative flux. You cant invent a design. You recognise it, in the fourth dimension. That is, with your blood and your bones, as well as with your eyes.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)