Book

Bernstein, Charles, 1950-

Attack of the difficult poems : essays and inventions / Charles Bernstein.

Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, ©2011.

282 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

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 unconven.

Poetry -- Explication.

Poetry -- Appreciation.

Includes bibliographical references.

I: Professing poetics -- The difficult poem -- A blow is like an instrument: the poetic imaginary and curricular practices -- Against national poetry month as such -- Invention follies -- Creative wreading & aesthetic judgment -- Wreading, writing, wresponding -- Anything goes -- Our Americas: new worlds still in progress -- The practice of poetics -- II: The art of immemorabililty -- Every which way but loose -- The art of immemorability -- Making audio visible: poetry's coming digital presence -- The bound listener -- Hearing voices -- Objectivist blues: scoring speech in second wave modernist poetry and lyrics -- III: The fate of the aesthetic -- McGann agonist -- Poetry and/or the sacred -- The art and practice of the ordinary -- Electronic pies in the poetry skies -- Poetry plastique: a verbal explosion in the art factory (with Jay Sanders) -- Speed the movie or speed the brand name or aren't you the kind that tells -- Breaking the translation curtain: the homophonic sublime -- Fraud's phantoms: a brief yet unreliable account of fighting fraud with fraud -- Fulcrum interview -- Radical Jewish culture/secular Jewish practice -- Poetry scene investigation: a conversation with Marjorie Perloff -- Is art criticism fifty years behind poetry? -- Poetry bailout will restore confidence of readers -- IV: Recantorium -- Recantorium (a bachelor machine, after Duchamp after Kafka).

Table of contents

Contributor biographical information

Publisher description

2010044223

9780226044767

0226044769

9780226044774

0226044777

9780226044750

0226044750

666234910

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