Scope and Content of Series
Series 1) CORRESPONDENCE: Letters, mainly photocopies, the bulk of which were originally written between 1963 and 1976, arranged
chronologically. Prominent correspondents include family members June Oppen Degnan and Linda Oppen Mourelatos; poets William
Bronk, Cid Gorman, Robert Creeley, Robert Duncan, David Ignatow, Robert Kelly, Denise Levertov, Ezra Pound, Charles Reznikoff,
Jerome Rothenberg, John Taggart, William Carlos Williams, Louis Zukofsky, and others; editors, publishers, and professors,
including John Crawford, L.S. Dembo, Milton Hindus, Eric Homberger, Hugh Kenner, David McAleavey. Oppen's letters detail his
life not only at the forefront of contemporary American poetry, but en famille. In them he reveals his love of conversation,
his coming to fame, his various public stances, his aesthetic opinions and positions, his participation in publishing. The
CORRESPONDENCE series also includes "Miscellaneous queries," which contain name and address lists of Oppen correspondents,
DuPlessis's letters of inquiry,and negative, but at times anecdotal, responses to her letters.
