Synopses & Reviews
Considered one of andldquo;our best outsidersandrdquo; by the
New York Times, Charles Bernstein is a leading voice in American poetry. With the essays in this volume, he offers an unorthodox readerandrsquo;s guide to modernist and contemporary poetics.
Displaying Bernsteinandrsquo;s characteristic mix of rigor and playfulness, Pitch of Poetry explores poetryandrsquo;s ties with politics, rhetoric, and ideology. Subjects include Holocaust representation, the poetics of Occupy Wall Street, and the figurative nature of abstract art. The book provides detailed overviews of formally inventive poetry, including essays onandmdash;or andldquo;pitchesandrdquo; forandndash;andndash;a set of key poets, from Gertrude Stein and Louis Zukofsky to Robert Creeley, John Ashbery, and Barbara Guest.and#160; In interviews and essays, Bernstein also reveals the formative ideas behind L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, the magazine he coedited with Bruce Andrews from 1978 to 1981. The final section, published here for the first time, is a sweeping work on the poetics of stigma, perversity, disability, and barbarism. Rooted in the thinking of Edgar Allan Poe, the essay discusses Emily Dickinson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Blake, and others within the context of controversial issues in current poetics.
Taken as a whole, Pitch of Poetry makes an exhilarating case for what Bernstein calls echopoetics: a poetry of call and response, reason and imagination, disfiguration and refiguration. A fascinating collection of works, this volume is an essential addition to every poetry loverandrsquo;s library.
Review
and#8220;A superb poet and great inventor of poetry, Charles Bernstein dazzlingly invents the essay for poetry: professing in a gorilla suit and white tuxedo.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;This is a smart and invigorating book that triumphantly demonstrates Charles Bernsteinand#8217;s goals and values. Those who want satire, those who want earnest discussion, those who want information, those who want to get a sense of personality, those who want theory, those who want entertainment, even those who wish to be confirmed in their beliefs and those who wish to nurse their resentments, will all find something here.and#8221;
Review
"Bernstein, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a remarkably prolific author, essayist and critic, not only defends difficult poems in this collection of essays, but also poetry in general, both as a reader and as a practitioner. In prose that is unconventional and often very funny, he comments as well on the state of the humanities, teaching, translation, the history of language media and the connections between poetry and visual art."
Review
"Charles Bernstein's new book has arrived from Chicago University Press, at my London address, enveloped in several stiff boxes like some kind of rare document. This book,and#160;
Attack of the Difficult Poems, is a must-have, must-read, for every practicing poet in Britain and Ireland. They should buy their copies online today. This may involve wasting money. But it will be worth it."
Review
and#8220;I regret to inform you that Charles Bernsteinand#8217;s
Attack of the Difficult Poems is highly unsuitable (not suitable) for National Poetry Month. Not suitable for acceptance by the publications of the Modern Language Association or its affiliate, the Annual Convention. Not suitable for readers under the age of five. Not suitable for endorsement by the
ParisReview. Not suitable for your average television sitcom.and#160;Not suitable for tenure. Not suitable for free distribution. Not suitable for variations in the ontological condition. Not suitable for readers of generic poetry.and#160;Not suitable for the MFA.and#160;For everyone else: priceless.and#8221;
Review
“A compelling work, enthralling to read and filled with profound insight, provocations, and an awe-inspiring range of engagements and knowledge. Poetics in a New Key is the perfect companion to Perloffs many books, but, more than that, it is an ideal introduction to her thought.”
Review
“Lively, engaging, and energetic. Perloff is the English-speaking worlds preeminent advocate for the poetic avant-garde, and in this book, she vigorously argues for the new and the innovative, and blasts the boring and conventional. Because of her exceptional candor and clarity, because of the depth of her convictions and knowledge, this book has unusual force. She cogently advances her positions, mixing firebrand assertion with robust humor. As an interviewee, she is charmingly aggressive, unflinchingly polemical, and disarmingly frank. Her confidence in her opinions is unwavering. These riveting pages are full of axioms, provocations, and manifesto-like pronouncements. Funny, robust, cantankerous, pointed, and amazingly vivid interviews and essays.”
Review
“Perloff is a superlative speaker and conversationalist; her off-the-cuff comments are powerfully insightful and energizing, and she is superb in a roundtable setting, where she can respond dynamically to others ideas and arguments. Poetics in a New Key will finally give a wider audience access to Perloff as a thinker and critic who excels in these more casual and spontaneous settings. Its interviews make for absorbing, even compulsive reading.”
Review
“This book is a dynamic introduction to the avant-garde of the past 150 years, as well as to Perloff’s work. Bayot’s judicious selections include discussions of manifestos, conceptualism, language and translation, Robert Lowell, poetry and pedagogy, futurism, conflicting traditions, and the practice of criticism. Perloff quotes writers she admires with ease (particularly Ezra Pound, Frank O’Hara, and David Antin). Favourite axioms (‘do not re-tell in mediocre verse what has already been done in good prose’) recur, giving the reader a clear understanding of the thought that has influenced her. The collection reveals Perloff at her best, as she ‘debates the role of various poetic movements and poets, as well as the larger relationship of poetry to culture.’ She is a gifted conversationalist with a remarkable awareness of her lifetime’s work, and a gratifying willingness continually to reassess her own ideas.”
Synopsis
Charles Bernstein is our postmodern jester of American poesy, equal part surveyor of democratic vistas and scholar of avant-garde sensibilities. In a career spanning thirty-five years and forty books, he has challenged and provoked us with writing that is decidedly unafraid of the tensions between ordinary and poetic language, and between everyday life and its adversaries. Attack of the Difficult Poems, his latest collection of essays, gathers some of his most memorably irreverent work while addressing seriously and comprehensively the state of contemporary humanities, the teaching of unconventional forms, fresh approaches to translation, the history of language media, and the connections between poetry and visual art.
Applying an array of essayistic styles, Attack of the Difficult Poems ardently engages with the promise of its title. Bernstein introduces his key theme of the difficulty of poems and defends, often in comedic ways, not just difficult poetry but poetry itself. Bernstein never loses his ingenious ability to argue or his consummate attention to detail. Along the way, he offers a wide-ranging critique of literatureand#8217;s place in the academy, taking on the vexed role of innovation and approaching it from the perspective of both teacher and practitioner.
From blues artists to Tin Pan Alley song lyricists to Second Wave modernist poets, The Attack of the Difficult Poems sounds both a battle cry and a lament for the task of the language maker and the fate of invention.
Synopsis
This collection of interviews and essays presents an entertaining and provocative introduction to the critical thought of Marjorie Perloff. The fourteen interviews conducted by accomplished scholars, poets, and critics from the United States, Denmark, Norway, France, and Poland cover many topics: poetrys nature as a literary genre, its current state, and its relation to art, politics, language, theory, and technology. The volume also features three essays by Perloff: an academic memoir, an exploration of poetry pedagogy, and an essay on the (re)constitution of the intellectuals in the 21st century. It will be an inspiring resource for both scholars and poets who care to live a life of attention, on and off the page of poetry.
Synopsis
Marjorie Perloff writes in her preface to
Poetics in a New Key that when she learned David Jonathan Y. Bayot wanted to publish a collection of her interviews and essays, she was at once honored and mystified.” But to Perloffs surprise and her readers delight, the resulting assembly not only presents an accessible and provocative introduction to Perloffs critical thought, but also highlights the wide range of her interests, and the energetic reassessments and new takes that have marked her academic career.
The fourteen interviews in Poetics in a New Keyconducted by scholars, poets, and critics from the United States, Denmark, Norway, France, and Poland, including Charles Bernstein, Hélène Aji, and Peter Nichollscover a broad spectrum of topics in the study of poetry: its nature as a literary genre, its current state, and its relationship to art, politics, language, theory, and technology. Also featured in the collection are three pieces by Perloff herself: an academic memoir, an exploration of poetry pedagogy, and an essay on twenty-first-century intellectuals. But across all the interviews and essays, Perloffs distinctive personality and approach to reading and talking resound, making this new collection an inspiring resource for scholars both of poetry and writing.
About the Author
Marjorie Perloff is professor of English emerita at Stanford University and the Florence R. Scott Professor of English Emerita at the University of Southern California. She is the author of many books, including, most recently, Poetics in a New Key and Unoriginal Genius, also published by the University of Chicago Press.
David Jonathan Y. Bayot is associate professor of literature at De La Salle University-Manila, Philippines.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface
Marjorie Perloff
Part I: The Critic
1 Becoming a Critic: An Academic Memoir
2 A Critic of the Other Tradition
Interview with Hélène Aji and Antoine Cazé
3 Marjorie Perloff On and Off the Page of Poetry
Interview with Kristine Samson and Nikolaj Rønhede
Part II: A Poetics
4 The Alter(ed) Ground of Poetry and Pedagogy
Conversation with Charles Bernstein
5 Mapping the New
Interview with Rain Taxi Review of Books
6 Modernism / Postmodernism? Will the Real Avant-garde Please Stand Up!
Interview with Jeffrey Side
7 (Un)Framing the other Tradition: On Ashbery and Others
Interview with Grzegorz Jankowicz
8 Robert Lowell, Now and Then
Conversation with David Wojahn
9 Futurism and Schism: Close Listening with Marjorie Perloff
Interview with Charles Bernstein
10 The Challenge of Language
Interview with Enrique Mallen
11 Conceptual Writing: A Modernist Issue
Interview with Peter Nicholls
12 Still Making It New: Marjorie Perloff in Manifesto Mode
Interview with Ellef Prestsæter
Part III: To Praxis
13 What is Poetry?
Interview with Fulcrum
14 On Evaluation in Poetry
Dialogue with Robert von Hallberg
15 Teaching Poetry in Translation: The Case for Bilingualism
16 The Internet Moment in the Life of Publishing
Interview with Front Porch Magazine
17 The Intellectual in the 21st Century
Afterword
David Jonathan Y. Bayot
Interviewers
Index of Names