Mary Oppen

Mary Oppen (; November 28, 1908 – May 14, 1990), was an American activist, artist, photographer, poet and writer. She published an autobiography, Meaning a Life, and a book of verse, Poems and Transpositions (1980). She was raised in the Pacific Northwest. In 1926 she met George Oppen in a poetry class at Oregon State University. Although they were, respectively, suspended (George) and expelled (Mary) for staying out together overnight, they formed a serious commitment, eventually to be a lifetime bond. Together they travelled extensively, and this began the succession of friendships and contacts out of which the poetry and politics of George and Mary Oppen grew.

Fifty years later, in her autobiography Meaning A Life (1978), Mary Oppen observed of these times:

Poetry, activism, and World War II After their initial peripatetic years together, the Oppens took up residence in New York City in the late 1920s. There they joined a circle of artists and writers, among whom were the poets Charles Reznikoff and Louis Zukofsky. During the 1930s the Oppens involved themselves in leftist political movements. They joined the Communist Party USA in 1935 after the seventh World Congress of the Communist Parties called for intellectuals to join in a united front against fascism and war. After their return from this trip, Mary noticed a decline in her husband’s health and a waning in his artistic authority. In 1977, she provided secretarial help so George could complete his final volume of poetry, Primitive. According to Rachel Blau DuPlessis, this "help" was atypical of their practice and was related to George's decline. During this time, George's final illness began to manifest itself with confusion, failing memory, and other losses. In 1980, the Montemora Foundation published her book Poems & Transpositions. George Oppen, died of pneumonia preceded by Alzheimer's disease on July 7, 1984, aged 76. On December 3, 1987, his widow read from her autobiography at the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery.

Mary Oppen died on May 14, 1990, of ovarian cancer at Alta Bates-Herrick Hospital in Berkeley, California, aged 81. She had been living in Albany, California. She was survived by a daughter, Linda Mourelatos.

Artist, poet, writer, photographer Several of her works have been exhibited. Oppen was also a diligent photographer and hers is a record of a life shared among writers and artists only now achieving recognition. These photographs afford glimpses into the world which George and Mary Oppen inhabited—one which was not officially recorded by the arbiters of taste or by academics in a depoliticized postwar America. Prints, paintings and collages by Mary Oppen were included in the 19th National Exhibition of Prints at the Library of Congress in 1963.