Charles Reznikoff

Charles Reznikoff (August 31, 1894 – January 22, 1976) was an American poet.
He was born in Brooklyn, New York and lived in New York City for most of his life. His parents were immigrants, refugees from anti-Jewish violence in the Russian Empire. His father was a hat-maker.
In 1912 he entered the New York University School of Law and practiced law briefly after graduating in 1915. He tried some jobs, but writing poetry was his main interest. He was influenced by the work of Ezra Pound and other modernist writers.
In the beginning, Reznikoff printed most of his own books. He was not well known as a poet until the 1950s. Then he was connected to a group of poets that were called "Objectivists". Louis Zukofsky included one of his poems in the February 1931 edition of Poetry magazine. His poems were known for their direct language. The poems did not focus on symbols or emotions. They stressed seeing and knowing what was in the outer world. They had "an almost documentary or photographic effect." His long poems "Testimony" and "Holocaust" used court records about racial injustice in the United States and the Nazi murders of Jewish people.