Born in a Jewish ghetto in Brooklyn at the end of the 19th century, the poet Charles Reznikoff addressed the human experience in all its forms. Pioneering the appropriation of court records, Reznikoff's documentary poetry draws up a searing portrait of the United States, while his plain verse work eschews lyricism and teases out threads of Jewish history and diasporic identity. Through the words of nine contemporary poets and scholars from the United States and Latin America, archival material of Reznikoff's New York and extracts from his 1974 poetry reading at the Poetry Center, San Francisco, this film is an invitation to live and see with Charles Reznikoff.
We've posted two versions of the film on our Charles Reznikoff author page: the original release as well as a version with French subtitles. There you'll also find the aforementioned Poetry Center reading (where he was famously introduced by his Objectivist compatriot, George Oppen), his 1975 appearance on Susan Howe's Pacifica Radio program, Poetry Today, film from the 1973 National Poetry Festival, and Abraham Ravett's 1975 session of Reznikoff reading Holocaust in his NYC apartment, among others. Click here to start exploring.
