Lorine+Niedecker


 * Lorine Niedecker** is noteworthy for her participation in Objectivist Poetics, especially since she is the only female among the other core participants Louis Zukofsky, William Carlos Williams and George Oppen. Her work is characterized by compact, direct language and relies on metonymy as opposed to metaphor.

=Biography=

Lorine Faith Niedecker was born in Wisconsin on May 12, 1903. During her high school years, an English teacher initiated Niedecker's lifelong interest in poetry. In 1922 she graduated high school and attended Beloit College in which she was an active member of both the poetry and debate clubs. In 1924, however, her education was stopped short after her father could no longer pay tuition. Her mother's deteriorating condition (deafness, depression brought on by husband's infidelity) brought Niedecker back to Wisconsin to care for her, where she settled down on Black Hawk Island, Wisconsin, the town she grew up in, and married in 1928. She took a library job, but The Great Depression quickly ended her employment as well as her husband's new-found road company. Niedecker and her husband separated in 1930, though they didn't officially divorce until 1942.

Niedecker's early poetry centered around the concepts of the subconscious, dreams, and abstract expressions. After reading an issue of //Poetry// in 1931, in which New York poet Louis Zukofsky spoke about objectivist poetics, she was so inspired and felt compelled to write him a letter. It took Neidecker six months to actually work up the courage write, but once she did it prompted a forty-year-long correspondence between them. Two years after the initial communication, Niedecker flew to New York to meet Zukofsky and they became lovers. Niedecker became pregnant at one point, and persuaded by Zukofsky, had an abortion. Their intellectual relationship endured, however, and through their following years together they gave each other inspiration and criticism.

She reflected in 1966, “I feel that without [that issue of //Poetry//], I’d never have developed as a poet – I literally went to school to William Carlos Williams and Louis Zukofsky and have had the good fortune to call the latter friend and mentor.” Zukofsky served as a positive force, encouraging and mentoring Niedecker in her work, and oftentimes going through several revisions of a single piece with her through their correspondence.

Niedecker only published four books during her lifetime, but was published in many literary magazines and popularized for her involvement in the Objectivist Poetics movement. Niedecker died in 1970 due to a hemorrhage; posthumous publishing of her collected works and two editions of correspondence made her body of work better known and accessible.

=Movements=

Imagism
In her earliest pieces Niedecker was greatly inspired by the Imagism movement, writing about clear-cut, specific images in a fashion contrasting the typical Romanticism feel (i.e., Romantics' implementation of metaphor and Imagists' of metonymy; the latter perhaps maintaining greater integrity of the subject). In 1928, two of Niedecker's poems were printed which showed her intrigue with the Imagist movement: "Transition," and "Mourning Dove." Niedecker had a natural affinity for the Imagists, "to the wordy ones and the strange rhythms."

Surrealism
Niedecker's stray from conventional Romanticism, holding qualities inherently opposite of Imagism, seamlessly explains her fascination with Surrealism as well. Come Zukofsky's publication in //Poetry// in 1931, Niedecker opened her eyes to even more poetic possibilities. She wrote to Zukofsky with her poem "When Ecstasy is Inconvenient," who immediately referred her to //Poetry//'s publisher for publication. This poem "reveals Niedecker's early surrealism, a style she was exploring long before 'Mr. Zukofsky referred me to the surrealists for correlation.'"

Objectivism/objectivist poetics
While known as the last to jump on the bandwagon (and the only woman directly associated with the movement) with the rest of the well-known and influential objectivist poets, her personal contribution brought new depth to the movement: writing about the self. She is credited as the one to bring "writing about the personal" to the movement, an especially intriguing addition considering the idea of objectively viewing one's self. See analysis of "There's a Better Shine" for more on Niedecker's use of self-image.

Jenny Penberthy’s essay “A little too little: Re-reading Lorine Niedecker” examines the transformation of Niedecker’s work, citing her early penchant for surrealism. Influenced by Virginia Woolf, she went on to explore “a depersonalized study of the self, of what Carl Rakosi would identify as the antithesis of Objectivism: 'the streaming consciousness'" – Penberthy goes on to compare her to Gertrude Stein. But after her work came under fire by Ezra Pound and acquaintance Zukofsky, she turned toward the more condensed forms which mark her shift toward Objectivism. Penberthy notes, as a display of Objectivism, her “ use of nonsense, [and] the same subtextual jostling beneath a strong surface of syntax and rhythm.”

Political/Social Activism
Between 1935-36, Niedecker grew inspired by her readings of Carl Marx and Friedrich Engles and committed herself to social reform; her focus moved from overt surrealism towards political and social themes, including "the Depression, the growth of Fascism, the Spanish Civil War, the Vichy government in France, the American involvement in World War II, the atomic bomb, and so on." Niedecker had a great interest in American history, and "much of her research would be reflected in her poems in the form of quotation, a practice familiar to her from her reading of Zukofsky, Pound, and Marianne Moore."

=Critical Reception and Analysis=

North Central
Niedecker's collection //North Central// (published 1968) is notable not only for the quality of the work, but for its format. Like William Carlos Williams, she refuses to fulfill the expectations of a typical collection of poems, and achieves it by her use of line, negative space, and font format. For example, it's impossible to know precisely where "Lake Superior" ends and another poem begins. All of the stanzas of "Lake Superior" are separated by a bullet point in negative space, but there is also a thematic thread linking the stanzas together. Niedecker continues this trend with the use of italics and off-set initial lines, choices usually reserved for titles. One could therefore argue that // Joilet //, // Wild Pigeon // , and // My Life by Water // are their own poems. One could also argue that they are a part of "Lake Superior" because the small capitols used for that title haven't been used again. These three emphasized lines can be viewed as markers to separate different sections within "Lake Superior," like movements in a concerto, tributaries to a river system or even capillaries off of veins. On these grounds, one could claim that // North Central // is cohesive, that all parts, regardless of their various headings or lack thereof, are simply a part of the whole, a theme which appears in the content of the work as well as in its form. These multiple interpretations are an excellent example of indeterminacy: no single one of them is "right," and none of them are "wrong," either, as each can be convincingly argued and substantiated.

//North Central// is full of rock imagery. The collection begins with the following section:

In every part of every living thing is stuff that once was rock

In blood the minerals of the rock

Playing off the concept of part-in-whole also exhibited by the format, one potential further analysis of //North Central// is that Niedecker is addressing Alienation. Once separated from the forms of community that humanity has been entrenched in for the majority of its history, she has reached out to the natural world, especially the Earth, and has made it sacred, reconciling herself as only a part of a whole system. This is drawn again, from the format of the piece as well as the content: by having part of the Earth in her blood (iron) she is a part of it as much as it is a part of her. It is also worth noting that there is absolutely no recourse to metaphor or symbolism here: there literally //is// 'stuff that once was rock' in every living thing.

Jackson Pollock's //Number 31 (//left), evokes feelings of falling and white noise or static which can be translated into action and motion. "Wintergreen Ridge" shares some of these effects. Referentially, the poem deals with destruction and decomposition in nature (on a micro scale, and therefore, metonymically, on a macro scale as well), but in regards to format, the piece behaves like //Number 31//. Due to the regularity in length and spacing of the lines in the poem, it gives a general impression of static. However, there are a few lines which pop out; for example, "pierced the woods red," "grind with their acid," "the bomb," "pelting of the police with flowers," "no space rocket launched here," "More news: the war which 'cannot be stopped,'" and "Great God--what men desire!--." All of these phrases, scattered throughout "Wintergreen Ridge," stand out due to their cultural significance as well as their abrasive imagery, similarly to the way larger white splotches of paint in the foreground of Pollock's piece stand out. Niedecker still gives the overall impression of oneness though, and therefore peace, through the regularity of the lines and also with the mention of both Flower Power and the Beats, both typically viewed as anti-war groups during Vietnam.

Other Analyses
 There's a better shine  on the pendulum  than is on my hair  and many times  * * * *  I've seen it there. (//Test of Poetry// 41)

Amidst his discussion of displacement and the Avant-Garde, Peter Middleton writes of “There’s a Better Shine” : “The diacritical stars are an integral part of the poem at several levels, indicating a pause for breath and a break in thought, representing a measure of elapsed time, and forming an iconic image of the beats of a pendulum." The poem's alternating of stressed and unstressed syllables further marries the work's form to its content--viewing the poem's mentioned objects (pendulum, shiny hair) as well as viewing the poem //itself// as an object, a characteristic seen frequently in Objectivist Poetics. Middleton continues: "This poem's elegant concision, musical control, innovative use of punctuation, and apparent simplicity of theme, typify much of Niedecker's later work;” perhaps an example of “condensery,” a term Niedecker coined herself and one which Rachel Blau DuPlessis applies to her other works.

This poem is also a noteworthy example of Niedecker writing about herself through the use of Objectivist Poetics. Her work focuses on the relationship between her own self-image (the shine in her hair) and the universal concept of time passing (the pendulum). This represents the inevitable perpetuation of meditation between subject and object in her style of poetry.

=External Resources=

A collection of Niedecker-related links including her poetry, essays, and an audio clip  Jenny Penberthy's Biography and Introduction to Niedecker's Collected Works  Links to various Analyses of Neidecker's work  Lorine Niedecker, The Anonymous: Gender, Class, and Genre Resistances by Rachel Blau DuPlessis

=References=

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