Oppen

I was wrong about Oppen, but what did I know?

Then I knew nothing, or close to nothing, about writing or reading.

Then, then I thought that I would begin to become a writer by reading and so I asked someone who knows who I should read.

You should read Oppen. 

So I read Oppen.

I didn't know where to begin so I began with Primitive, the last book Oppen wrote.

I told the one who told me to read Oppen that there wasn't much happening there, but only when he asked.

He looked at me with all he knew of me, then he looked at me like he didn't know me at all.

I'm reading Oppen again, now. There's so much more there than I knew at the time.

Now I'm not surprised to learn that the last public line Oppen wrote was, "My happiness is the knowledge of all we do not know."