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Conversation with Mary Oppen Mary Oppen Masthead Logo The Iowa Review Volume 18 Article 3 Issue 3 Fall 1988 Conversation with Mary Oppen Mary Oppen Dennis Young Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.uiowa.edu/iowareview Part of the Creative Writing Commons Recommended Citation Oppen, Mary and Dennis Young. "Conversation with Mary Oppen." The Iowa Review 18.3 (1988): 18-47. Web. Available at: https://doi.org/10.17077/0021-065X.3657 This Contents is brought to you for free and open access by Iowa Research Online. It has been accepted for inclusion in The oI wa Review by an authorized administrator of Iowa Research Online. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Conversation with Mary Oppen Dennis Young to is aThe quiekest way learn any subject to contacts make private with those who it know best and get them talking." Saul Bellow More Die of Heartbreak most or DY: What do you like about George's poetry, what do you think ismost distinctive about it? MO: Well, I find it very lyrical, and I very much enjoy the very strict structuring of it. I a two DY: I especially like the poems he writes for you. took class about on years ago that focused George and Mary Oppen, not just George we on Oppen. I thought it odd at first that would be focusing the two of you, because I can't recall any other time the whole time I've been study we on ing literature that focused the life and wife of the poet along with mean the collected works. What is it that made that relationship "two"? I "two" in every way. You were with him. As he says, your words are "en tangled inextricably among my own." were. me as as came MO: Right. They For well for him. I think it from . we we were really, you know lived together from the time eighteen, and we wished the best for each other and helped each other and itwas just a joint life. secret? DY: What's the secret? (laughter) Is there any MO: I don't know, we had an awful lot of fun. to DY: You did. Whoever gets write the biography of George and Mary to a Oppen is going have good time, I think. After reading your autobiog seems more raphy, it exciting than the lives of any of the other poets. MO: I think so. (laughter) DY: In a I mention and the sea a Meaning Life noticed that you sailing lot. one one our to At point you say: "This experience is which holds world gether." to us. MO: The boat was very central and very important We always had a some kind of a little boat. And we could get just clear away and part was * July 2, 1987, Berkeley, California 18 University of Iowa is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to The Iowa Review ® www.jstor.org mean really the silence. I there isn't anything like being clear outside of or to was everything, at least where there aren't people. And be together ... somehow it was better than being alone because, after all, solitude an really is the human condition, and George and I didn't suffer awful lot we even from that. I think most people do. Imeant could just be alone we were was . I though together. Somehow it possible. And usually more Iwrote. was a painted; I painted than And George night person, and to we one room I'd go bed early and wake up early. So for years lived in . eve with a suitcase. And I could work in the mornings. and in the were nings he would work. We both good sleepers. DY: What about the early years? came we MO: I down here [San Francisco] and then started hitchhiking. We went to Texas. eas DY: Oh really. That's back when you could hitchhike and get rides ily. no on ? or MO: There were other women the road girls?but there really never was out were sorts any danger either there. And there all of people we were it was You hitchhiking and very well treated and just great. to know, we got to see the country and began understand something out side of our families. seems DY: That to be the start of the "Oppen scenario." George talks a about it in the last collection, Primitive. He says, "Finding home away from home." MO: Right. sum was on at DY: Doesn't that really it up?what going that time? we were we were . MO: Yes. But I think always at home wherever the ... a a house I have house now, I enjoy it very, very much, and I have real not kitchen for the first time and I enjoy it very much, but it's very impor was no to to me we tant and it of really almost importance him and where . lived and we didn't collect stuff very much. We could do all these we to move move things; remained quite free around. We certainly did around a lot. contact most time DY: Did you keep in with Reznikoff of the while you were in New York? not we were we we MO: Yes. But when political. When joined the party to our felt it wouldn't be right continue previous acquaintances, because cer they might feel endangered. And during the McCarthy period they 19 we to tainly would have been. So decided, well, if they want keep up the relationship after they found out that we'd become leftists, that's really up to us was them, and the only person who followed George's younger sis was a us. to us ter, who little girl, and she always visited She'd have bail or out of jail something like that. DY: Was that June Oppen? was a . MO: Uh-huh. June Degnan. She very devoted little sister. But we was when returned from Mexico and George writing again, before we came we were us back decided, well, the politics pretty much behind and sort we we the activist of role and that would look up everybody. So looked up ancient uncles and aunts and leftists and previous friends, Zu we ever kofsky and everybody whom had known. We looked them up, in some cases a was an and resumed friendship. With Zukofsky it always on and off affair, because he was very difficult. was DY: What it like in Mexico? Were you painting there? MO: Yes, I did. was as a DY: And George working mechanic? a were MO: No, he had carpentry shop. In Mexico the labor laws very we were not we were strict and violating any laws because after all living can own or a a there. A foreigner only 50% 49% of business. George had a quite wonderful partner, really wonderful mechanic. He managed the workers, and George did the designing and delivery and other things. was DY: What kind of carpentry he doing?boats, houses? MO: No, it was furniture. me an DY: That reminds of interview you had in APR, where George an a a makes analogy between writing?making poem and making piece not of furniture: "If it's perfect, you're in it." And he writes many poems about carpentry, for example, "Carpenter's Boat." Do you think he found a sense a sense of creating poem much like his of craftsmanship in carpen try? so. came MO: Yes, I think You see, George from an upper middle-class, never bourgeois, Jewish family that had (at any rate, with any history that I ever heard anything about) done anything with their hands. And George was as a was not told child that he good with his hands, and it was all enter aimed towards following your father's footsteps into your father's or or not a prise business whatever it was, and certainly becoming poor or to test peddler Jew something like that. So George set himself himself? 20 a and he did. He got top rating in the machinist union working with a a metal and he was very fine carpenter, cabinet maker. And in the Army he joined the infantry and he wouldn't accept advancement. And all these were a as see was things test, Sherwood Anderson says, "to if he any good out was was not there." He always testing himself, he in any way willing to fall into that other pattern of the pure intellectual who didn't know the I workings of the world. And think the twenty years in the Communist was an us. was to Party explanation for both of The experience important, to to get know those people. How else do you get know those people? In to an came the 1930s, I tell you, you did get know awful lot of people who an from every walk of life, and certainly awful lot of them who had a were worked for living and starving. was DY: Another problem George had reconciling the poetry and the politics, and he found the proletariat writers inadequate. we came we were MO: When back [from Europe] shocked about the to a was. we a 1930s. It's hard explain what shock it So did lot of poking around. We went and listened to Socialists and Socialist Labor Party we mean people and Trotskyites and read all the literature avidly, and our were on street. was no while people, fathers, you know, the There were was on work and they starving and furniture piled the sidewalks, and was on sort the United States about umpteenth down the line any of social were was services.
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