About Charles Reznikoff
Charles Reznikoff was a jewish american poet best known for his long poetry work, Testimony: The United States (1885-1915), Recitative (1934-1979). The term Objectivist was first coined for him. The multi-volume Testimony was based on court records and explored the experiences of immigrants, black people and the urban and rural poor in the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He followed this with Holocaust (1975), based on court testimony about Nazi death camps during World War II. In 1930 Reznikoff married Marie Syrkin, a prominent Zionist and friend and biographer of Golda Meir. Although they did not live together at all times during the marriage, it lasted until Reznikoff's death. When Louis Zukofsky was asked by Harriet Monroe to provide an introduction to what became known as the Objectivist issue of Poetry, he contributed his essay, Sincerity and Objectification: With Special Reference to the Work of Charles Reznikoff. This established the name of the loose-knit group of 2nd generation modernist poets and the two characteristics of their poetry: sincerity and objectification. In this selection, we have compiled some great pieces of his most popular and famous poems to be shared with you.Browse all poems and texts published on Charles Reznikoff
