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Louis Zukofsky (January 23, 1904 – May 12, 1978) was one of the most important second-generation American modernist poets. Events 393 - Roman Emperor Theodosius I proclaims his nine year old son Honorius co-emperor Events Nobel Prize in Literature is shared by French poet Frédéric Mistral and Spanish dramatist José Echegaray y Events 1191 - Richard I of England marries Berengaria of Navarre. Events L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Magazine edited by Bruce Andrews and Charles Bernstein, first published Stevie, The poetry of the United States arose first during its beginnings as the constitutionally unified Thirteen colonies (although before this a strong Modernist poetry refers to poetry written between 1890 and 1930 in the tradition of Modernist literature; the dates of the term depend upon a number of factors including the A poet is a person who writes Poetry. Etymology From the Ancient greek: ποιέω, poieō: "I make or compose" He was co-founder and primary theorist of the Objectivist group of poets and was to be an important influence on subsequent generations of poets in America and abroad. The Objectivist poets were a loose-knit group of second-generation Modernists who emerged in the 1930s

Contents

Early life and writings

He was born in New York of Lithuanian Jewish parents and grew up speaking Yiddish. New York ( is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania (Lietuvos Respublika is a Country in Eastern often referred to as Northern Europe or in the PLEASE TAKE NOTE************ Yiddish (yi [[wiktייִדיש ייִדיש]] yidish or yi [[wiktאידיש אידיש]] idish, literally "Jewish" is a nonterritorial High His parents were orthodox and Louis reacted against this religious tradition at a young age. Nevertheless, his family figured quite strongly in his later writings.

As a child, Zukofsky frequented Yiddish theatres in the Bowery where he saw many works by Shakespeare, Ibsen, Strindberg and Tolstoy performed in Yiddish translations. Bowery (ˈbaʊɚi or /ˈbaʊri/ is the name of a street and a small neighborhood in the southern portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan. William Shakespeare ( baptised "Ibsen" redirects here For other people named Ibsen see Ibsen (disambiguation. This article is about the Tolstoy family, for other meanings see Tolstoy (disambiguation Tolstoy, or Tolstoi He also read both Longfellow's Hiawatha and Aeschylus's Prometheus Bound in that language. Aeschylus (ˈɛskɨləs or /ˈiːskɨləs/ Greek: Ασχύλος, Aischylos, 525 BC/524 BC 456 BC/455 BC was an ancient Greek Playwright His first real contact with English was when he started school, but he was a quick learner and by the age of 11 had read all of Shakespeare's works in the original. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States

He went on to study English at Columbia. Columbia University is a private University in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. He graduated with a Master's degree in 1924. He began writing at university and joined the college literary society as well as publishing poems in student magazines. One early poem was published in Poetry but never reprinted. Poetry, published in Chicago Illinois since 1912 is one of the leading monthly Poetry journals in the English-speaking world

Zukofsky considered Ezra Pound to be the most important living poet, and in 1927 he sent his poem Poem beginning "The" to the older man. Ezra Weston Loomis Pound ( Hailey, Idaho Territory, United States October 30 1885 – Venice, Italy November 1 1972 was an American Expatriate Year 1927 ( MCMXXVII) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The poem, most of which is addressed to the poet's mother, was a kind of parody of T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land. Thomas Stearns Eliot, OM (September 26 1888 – January 4 1965 was a poet Dramatist, and Literary critic. In contrast to Eliot's pessimistic view of the modern world, The suggests a bright future for Western culture based in Zukofsky's belief in the energy of the new immigrants to the U. S. and the socialist experiment then occurring in Russia. Socialism refers to a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating state or collective ownership and administration of the Means of production and distribution Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending

Politics

In his early years, Zukofsky was a committed Marxist. Marxism is the political philosophy and practice derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. While studying at Columbia, his friend Whittaker Chambers sponsored him for membership in the Communist Party, though it is unclear whether he actually joined. Whittaker Chambers ( April 1, 1901 &ndash July 9, 1961) born Jay Vivian Chambers and also known as David Whittaker A Political party described as a communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of Communism through a communist form of While he associated with Party members and published in Party-associated magazines, his poetry, which while strongly political was resolutely avant-garde and difficult, found little favor in Party circles. Though Zukofsky considered himself a Marxist at least through the end of the 1930s, the focus of his work after 1940 turned from the political to the domestic. Much later, he would claim that reading Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire finally turned him away from Marx. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (known popularly as The History) was written by English Historian

Zukofsky the Objectivist

Pound was impressed by Poem beginning "The" and promoted Zukofsky's work, putting him in contact with other like-minded poets, including William Carlos Williams. William Carlos Williams ( 17 September 1883 &ndash 4 March 1963) was an American poet closely associated with modernism The two poets influenced each other's work significantly, and Williams regularly sent his new work to Zukofsky for editing and improvement. Zukofsky was one of the founders of the Objectivist group of poets and of To Publishers, later the Objectivist Press, along with Charles Reznikoff and George Oppen. The Objectivist poets were a loose-knit group of second-generation Modernists who emerged in the 1930s Charles Reznikoff ( August 31, 1894 - January 22, 1976) was the Poet for whom the term Objectivist was first coined George Oppen ( April 24, 1908 - July 7, 1984) was an American poet best known as one of the members of the Objectivist Thanks to Pound's insistence, he was able to edit an Objectivist issue of Poetry, in which he both coined the term and defined the two main characteristics of Objectivist poetry as sincerity and objectification. Other poets associated with this group included Williams, Basil Bunting, Lorine Niedecker, Carl Rakosi, Charles Reznikoff and Kenneth Rexroth. Basil Cheesman Bunting ( 3 March 1900 – 17 April 1985) was a British modernist poet Lorine Niedecker (English pronounced Needecker ( May 12, 1903 - December 31, 1970) was born on the Black Hawk Island near Fort Atkinson Carl Rakosi ( November 6, 1903 &ndash June 25, 2004) was the last surviving member of the original group of poets who were given the rubric Charles Reznikoff ( August 31, 1894 - January 22, 1976) was the Poet for whom the term Objectivist was first coined Kenneth Rexroth ( December 22[[ 905]] &ndash June 6[[ 982]] was an American Poet, Translator and critical Essayist He was among the

"A"

Zukofsky's major work was the long poem "A" - Zukofsky never referred to it without the quotation marks - which he began in 1927 and was to work on for the rest of his life, albeit with an eight-year hiatus between 1940 and 1948. The poem was written in 24 sections, reflecting the hours of the day, and the figure of the poet's father is a major theme. The first 11 sections contain much that is overtly political but interweave this matter with formal concerns and models that range from medieval Italian canzone through sonnets to free verse and the music of Bach. The sonnet is one of the poetic forms that can be found in Lyric poetry from Europe. Free verse is a term describing various styles of Poetry that are written without using strict meter or Rhyme, but that still are recognizable as poetry WikipediaWikiProject Composers#Lead section.2 This article is written in British English including maximised use of "-ise" Section 12, which is longer than the first 11 sections combined, introduces materials from the poet's family life, and from there on "A" interweaves the political, historical and personal in more or less equal measure. The extensive use of music in this work reflects the importance of Zukofsky's collaborations with his wife Celia, a professional musician. Their son Paul Zukofsky became a noted violinist and conductor. Paul Zukofsky (b Brooklyn, New York, October 22, 1943) is an American violinist and conductor known for his work in the field of Contemporary

Shorter poems, translations, and other writings

In tandem with "A", Zukofsky continued writing shorter poems throughout his life. Many of these shared the political and formal concerns of the longer poem, but they also include more personal lyrics, including a series of Valentines addressed to Celia. The first book publication of these shorter poems was 55 Poems (1941). Events September 3 &mdash 19-year-old John Gillespie Magee Jr He continued to write and publish shorter poems and these were eventually collected in All: The Collected Short Poems, 1923-1964 (1971). Events This Magazine founded by Robert Grenier and Barrett Watten The Canterbury Tales,

Zukofsky also wrote critical essays, many of which were collected in Prepositions: The Collected Critical Essays of Louis Zukofsky (1968) and the book-length study Bottom: On Shakespeare (1963) which was accompanied by a second volume containing a setting by Celia of Shakespeare's play Pericles, Prince of Tyre . Events The Belfast Group, a grouping of poets in Belfast, Northern Ireland which was started in 1963 in poetry, lapsed in 1966 Events Bob Dylan releases his The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, album with his most influential early songwriting His prose fiction includes Ferdinand (1968) and Little: For Careenagers (1970). The year 1968 in literature involved some significant events and new books The year 1970 in literature involved some significant events and new books He also wrote a play Arise, Arise (1962/1973) and, in 1969, an extraordinary set of translations of Catullus that attempted to replicate the sound rather than the sense of the originals in English. The year 1962 in literature involved some significant events and new books The year 1973 in literature involved some significant events and new books Year 1969 ( MCMLXIX) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. For Zukofsky, translation provided occasions not for modest apprenticeship but rather for technical tours de force.

This virtuosity, inventiveness, and humor are all in full dazzle with "A Foin Lass Bodders Me," his translation of Guido Cavalcanti's "Donna Me Prega," a 13th-century canzone which Pound had translated several times. Guido Cavalcanti (c 1255 – August 1300 was an Italian Poet who was a role model for and a very close friend of Dante. Literally "song" in Italian, a canzone (plural canzoni) (cognate with English to Chant) is an Italian or Provençal Pound had muted the poem's intricate rhyme scheme, reasoning that English was rhyme-poor next to Italian, and that lines "with the natural swing of words spoken" in the latter would sound stilted and artificial in the former. Zukofsky's solution was to substitute a Brooklyn vernacular for standard English, and transform a philosophical lyric into a dramatic monologue. In this way he managed to preserve every aspect of the poem's technical intricacy, down to the leap-frogging internal rhymes; what might otherwise have seemed an excess of artifice is resolved within the boozy virtuosity of the poem's swaggering speaker. Cavalcanti's envoi –

Tu puoi sicuramente gir, canzone,
là 've ti piace, ch'io t'ho sì adornata
ch'assai laudata - sarà tua ragione
da le persone - c'hanno intendimento:
di star con l'altre tu non hai talento.

– is performed as follows by Zukofsky's speaker:

You may go now assuredly, my ballad,
Where you please, you are indeed so embellished
That those who've relished you more that their salad
Days'll hold you hallowed and away from shoddy–
You can't stand making friends with everybody.

His A Test of Poetry (1948) was a teaching anthology with critical commentary, after the manner of Pound's The ABC of Reading. ABC of Reading is a book by Ezra Pound published in 1934 In it Pound sets out an approach to the appreciation and understanding of literature (focusing primarily

Late revival

Having suffered critical neglect for most of his career, Zukofsky, along with the other Objectivists, was rediscovered by the Black Mountain and Beat poets in the 1960s and 1970s. The Black Mountain poets, sometimes called projectivist poets, were a group of mid 20th century American avant-garde or Postmodern poets centered The poet and editor Cid Corman was largely responsible, publishing Zukofsky's work and critical comments on it in his magazine Origin and through Origin Press from the late 1950s onward. Cid (Sidney Corman ( June 29, 1924 &ndash March 12, 2004) was an American poet, translator and editor most notably of Origin magazine, an American poetry magazine founded in 1951 by Cid Corman, (its longstanding editor and Charles Olson, provided an early platform In the 1970s, Zukofsky was a major influence on many of the Language poets, particularly in their formalism. The Language poets (or L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets, after the magazine that bears that name are an Avant garde group or tendency in United States The complete "A" was at the printers when the poet died in 1978. Events L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Magazine edited by Bruce Andrews and Charles Bernstein, first published Stevie, His Complete Short Poetry appeared in 1991. Events Forward Poetry Prize created Dana Gioia, writing in The Atlantic Monthly suggests (in an article titled "Can

Currently the Zukofsky revival continues unabated. In 2000 Wesleyan University Press, honoring Zukofsky's birth in 1904, began publishing The Wesleyan Centennial Edition of the Complete Critical Writings of Louis Zukofsky. Events Griffin Poetry Prize is established with one award given each year for the best work by a Canadian poet and one award given for best work in the English Editions of "A" continue to be published and sell quickly; Chicago Review (Winter 2004/5) devoted an issue to Zukofsky; his correspondence with William Carlos Williams was published in 2003. Events April 1 &mdash Foetrycom Web site is launched for the announced purpose of "Exposing fraudulent contests Events January 29 &mdash Poet Dana Gioia, who had retired early from his career as a corporate executive at General Foods to write full time becomes In 2007, Shoemaker & Hoard published Mark Scroggins' The Poem of a Life: A Biography of Louis Zukofsky, a full-length analysis of the poet's career derived from extensive archival research and interviews with Zukofsky's friends, acquaintances, and family members. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century.

Bibliography

Poetry, prose, plays

Centennial Edition of the Complete Critical Writings

Letters and correspondence

As editor

Further reading

References

External links

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