Charles Reznikoff was a poet, prose writer, and playwright whose work significantly contributed to American modernism. Drawing on his heritage as a New York City Jewish-American, Reznikoff, like his fellow ‘Objectivists’ Louis Zukofsky and George Oppen, used the resources of modernist poetry—spare lines, suppression of rhetoric, and attention to daily life—to explore Jewish history as well as the American urban experience. Particularly in works like Testimony (1965) and Holocaust (1975), Reznikoff relied upon his legal training to establish the poet as a witness, one who offers an account without judgement or praise.