Charles Reznikoff Quotes

United States, Poet
August 31, 1894 – January, 22, 1976.

Charles Reznikoff was an American poet best known for his long work, Testimony: The United States (1885-1915), Recitative (1934-1979). The term Objectivist was coined for him. The multi-volume Testimony was based on court records and explored the experiences of immigrants, black people and the urban and rural poor in the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He followed this with Holocaust (1975), based on court testimony about Nazi death camps during World War II.

When I was four years old my mother led me to the park. The spring sunshine was not too warm. The street was almost empty. The witch in my fairy-book came walking along. She stooped to fish some mouldy grapes out of the gutter.

Charles Reznikoff
- Mother
- Witch
- Park
The fish has too many bones and the watermelon too many seeds.

Charles Reznikoff
- Bones
- Fish
- Seeds

Among the heaps of brick and plaster lies a girder, still itself among the rubbish

Charles Reznikoff
- Rubbish
- Brick
- Plaster
By all means, then, let us have psalms and days of dedication anew to the old causes

Charles Reznikoff
- Old
- Days
- Dedication
Not the five feet of water to your chin but the inch above the tip of your nose.

Charles Reznikoff
- Water
- Feet
- Nose
The street curves in and out, up and down in great waves of asphalt; at night the granite tomb is noisy with starlings like the creaking of many axles; only the tired walker know how much there is to climb, how the sidewalk curves into the cold wind.

Charles Reznikoff
- Street
- Curves
- Asphalt
I will walk by myself and cure myself in the sunshine and the wind.

Charles Reznikoff
- Myself
- Walk
- Cure
The miracle, of course, was not that the oil for the sacred light - in a little cruse - lasted as long as they say; but that the courage of the Maccabees lasted to this day: let that nourish my flickering spirit.

Charles Reznikoff
- Courage
- Miracle
- Lasted

The fingers of your thoughts are molding your face ceaselessly.

Charles Reznikoff
- Thoughts
- Face
- Molding