Literary Nonfiction. Poetry History & Criticism. This expanded edition of SPEAKING THE ESTRANGED brings together Michael Heller's writings on the work of George Oppen (1908-1984), one of America's most remarkable and distinguished poets. Heller's essays, written over the last twenty years since his groundbreaking book on the Objectivist poets, CONVICTION'S NET OF BRANCHES, cover all of Oppen's poetry and how other poets and critics have read him. They touch on all phases of his career, from his early roots in the Objectivist tradition to his abandonment of poetry for political and social activism in the nineteen thirties and his coming back to poetry in the nineteen fiftes. Oppen's work won the Pulitzer Prize in 1968, and is considered by many to be one of the most extraordinary and original bodies of poetry in the twentieth century.

Author City: NEW YORK, NY USA

Michael Heller is a poet, essayist and critic. Among his many books are THIS CONSTELLATION IS A NAME: COLLECTED POEMS 1965-2010, SPEAKING THE ESTRANGED: ESSAYS ON THE POETRY OF GEORGE OPPEN, BECKMANN VARIATIONS AND OTHER POEMS, TWO NOVELLAS: MARBLE SNOWS & THE STUDY, ESCHATON, EARTH AND CAVE, EXIGENT FUTURES, and WORDFLOW: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS. He wrote the libretto for the opera Benjamin, based on the life of Walter Benjamin. His awards include the NEH Poet/Scholar grant, the Di Castagnola Prize and New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships. He was born in 1937 in New York City where he now lives.