Frances Richard, The George Oppen Memorial Lecture: December 17, 2016

The Poetry Center presents Frances Richard delivering the 32nd annual George Oppen Memorial Lecture, entitled "The Mind's own Place and Feminine Technologies: George Oppen and Possibilities of the Political." The Oppen Memorial Lecture series benefits from the support of the Dorothy A. Fowler Trust.

Originally Recorded By
DocFilm Institute
Location
Unitarian Center, San Francisco
Date
12/17/2016
Total Run Time
01:31:40
Contributor
Steve Dickison, Susan Thackrey, Steven Seidenberg, Kevin Killian, Grace Chen, Linda Ray
Rights
©© American Poetry Archives. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. For all other uses please email poetry@sfsu.edu
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4530
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Frances Richard (01:06:22)

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Steve Dickison welcomes the audience and introduces Frances Richard. Richard presents a preamble then three "mini-essays" in response to Oppen's essay on poetic theory "The Mind's Own Place," written for The Nation, rejected by poet-editor Denise Levertov, and ultimately published in the journal Kulchur (1963). Richard's "Essay One: Milton Version," "Essay Two: The Feminine Technologies," and "Essay Three: The Mind's Own Place, Oppen Version," explore at length Oppen's essay and poetics in relation to Milton's Paradise Lost, the quarrel and surviving correspondence between Oppen and Levertov, the ways in which Oppen genders the ethical tension between art and politics, Oppen's family history, and his question over whether there are "situations which cannot honorably be met by art."

Conversation (00:24:29)

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Frances Richard responds to comments and questions, following her talk, from members of the audience, including Linda Ray, an unidentified speaker, poets Susan Thackrey, Steven Seidenberg, Kevin Killian, and painter Grace Chen.

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