He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry and the author of several poetry collections and a stunning memoir, From Baghdad to Brooklyn, the story of his youth as a Sephardic Jew struggling with his orthodox religious heritage. George Oppen (1908–84) was an influential and much admired American poet. “A Gift” is from Gorgeous Chaos: New and Selected Poems 1965–2001, published by Coffee House Press and used with permission.