Charles Reznikoff facts for kids

Charles Reznikoff (born August 31, 1894 – died January 22, 1976) was an American poet. He is best known for his very long poem, Testimony: The United States (1885–1915), Recitative. This huge work was based on real court records. It explored the lives of regular people, like immigrants and those living in cities or the countryside, in the United States from the late 1800s to the early 1900s.

Later, he wrote Holocaust (1975). This poem also used court records, but these were about the terrible events that happened in World War II. The word "Objectivist" was first used to describe his unique style of poetry.

In 1930, Reznikoff married Marie Syrkin. She was an important supporter of Zionism, which is about supporting a Jewish homeland. Marie was also a friend and writer about Golda Meir, who became a leader in Israel. Their marriage lasted until Reznikoff's death.

A poet named Louis Zukofsky wrote an essay called Sincerity and Objectification. This essay helped name a group of poets as "Objectivists." It also described two main ideas of their poetry: being sincere (honest) and objectifying (showing things as they are, without much personal feeling).

Growing Up and Early Life

Charles Reznikoff was born in 1894 in a Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. His parents, Sarah Yetta and Nathan Reznikoff, came from the Russian Empire. They had to leave their home because of difficult times there. Charles's Hebrew name was Ezekiel, named after his grandfather. His father had a business making hats.

Charles finished high school when he was young and had already started writing poems. He spent a year studying journalism at the University of Missouri. There, he realized he loved writing stories more than just reporting news. In 1912, he started law school at New York University and finished in 1916. He worked as a lawyer for a short time. In 1918, during World War I, he joined officer training but the war ended before he saw active service.

After law school, Reznikoff worked for his family's hat business as a salesman. He also worked for a company that published legal books. His job was to write summaries of court cases for these books. This experience was very important for his later poetry.

From his teenage years, Reznikoff was always writing poetry. His early work was influenced by a style called Imagist poetry, which focused on clear, sharp images. He often published his own books using a special old printing press. He even set the type himself! He always wanted his work to be published, sometimes even paying for it himself. This idea came from a family story about his grandfather, who was a Hebrew poet. His grandfather's writings were destroyed after he died, because people were afraid they would fall into the wrong hands.

Becoming an Objectivist Poet

Around the time the "Objectivist" style of poetry became known, Reznikoff, along with Louis Zukofsky and George Oppen, started their own publishing companies. First, they called it To Publishers, and later, the Objectivist Press. Their main goal was to publish their own poems and stories.

Reznikoff had some success with his novel By the Waters of Manhattan in 1930. The new Objectivist Press then published three of his books. Two of these were collections of poems he had printed himself before. The third was the first part of his long poem called Testimony.

Poetry from Court Records

In its first versions, Testimony was a story told in regular writing. Reznikoff found these stories while working with court records. He felt these accounts gave him a deep look into American life between 1885 and 1915, showing both its many different people and its difficult times. Interestingly, he chose not to include the judges' decisions. Instead, he focused only on the twists and turns of the stories themselves.

For the next forty years, Reznikoff worked on turning these stories into a very long poem. It ended up being about 500 pages long across two books. He tried to use the exact words of the people involved in the court cases as much as possible. Because of this, his poetry rarely used metaphor (like saying "the sky wept"). It also showed very little of his own feelings or personality. In this way, Testimony is seen as a very important example of Objectivist poetry.

The special way Reznikoff wrote this poem was very helpful for his later work, Holocaust. This poem was also based on stories from court cases. These cases were about the terrible events that happened in World War II. He also used this style for his poems that retold stories from the Torah, which is part of the Old Testament.

Later Recognition

For most of his life, Reznikoff lived and wrote without much fame. His work was usually published by himself or by small, independent publishers. In the 1960s, his friend, poet George Oppen, and Oppen's sister June Oppen Degnan, helped him. They convinced New Directions Publishers to release two of his poetry books. These were By the Waters of Manhattan (1962) and Testimony: The United States 1885–1890 (1965).

Even though other poets like Hayden Carruth, May Swenson, and Denise Levertov praised his work, many critics did not like it. Reznikoff had to go back to publishing his own work to see it in print.

In 1971, he won the Morton Dauwen Zabel Prize, which was $2,500, from The National Institute of Arts and Letters. Around this time, he found a new publisher, Black Sparrow Press. They published By the Well of Living and Seeing: New and Selected Poems, 1918-1973 in 1974. When Reznikoff died, he was checking the final versions of the first book of his Collected Poems for Black Sparrow. After he passed away, Black Sparrow reprinted all his main poetry and prose works. They also published a novel he had finished, The Manner “Music” (1977), which was found among his papers.

Reznikoff's Influence in Other Media

In 2013, a band called Joan of Arc worked with an experimental performance group. Together, they created a musical and theater show based on Reznikoff's poem Testimony. The album inspired by his work was named Testimonium Songs.

The song "Texas Reznikoff" by singer-songwriter Mitski, from her album Bury Me at Makeout Creek (2014), mentions Reznikoff's work. In an interview in 2016, Mitski said Reznikoff influenced her music. She admired how precise his poetry was and how he could "create a striking image in people’s brains."

Reznikoff is also mentioned in a novel by Yannick Haenel called Tiens ferme ta couronne (2017), which means Hold Fast the Crown in English. One chapter in the novel is even named after him.