24 The Nation. July 2/9, 1988 - not in the sense of which persons, but rather persons of what order? How Radical Collages will they be constituted,understand their own “individuality,” and relate HANK LAZER Language writing challenges Ameri- this to such audiencesas each attempts can poets to be something other than to construct? Such questions qeboth ou will not find the poems of ornanients to the national culture and to literary and social. ‘language poets”in The Arner- resistwhat Laura Ridingonce called Silliman, who worked for a number of ican Poetry Review, The New “the forced professionalization of poet- years inthe California prison movement Y Yorkei or Poetty; you will sel- ry.” In The New Sentence, a collection and is currently the executive editor of dom see their work reviewed there or in of essays,Ron Sillirnan reminds us, Socialist Review, argues that The New York Times; nor will many of thembe offered teaching positions or the primary ideologicalmessage of poetry lies not its explicit content, readingsthrough the M.F.A. industry , IN THIS REVIEW in political though that may be, but in and theassociated writing programs. the attitude towardreception it de- But for overtwenty years, in maga- THE NEW SENTENCE, By Ron mands of the reader. It is this “attitude zines such as Jogiars (1964-65), Toftel’s Sillimn. Roof Books. 209 pp. Pa- toward information,’’ whichis carried (1971-81), This (1971 to the present) and per $10. forward by the recipient. L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E (1978-Sl), For Silliman, -tics must be concerned the language poets have been buildinga LIT. By Ron Silliman. Potes & Poets Press. 70 pp. Paper $7.50. with the process by which writing is or- poetry network outside the universities ganized politically into literature,” and and official verse culture. By now, this ARTIFICE ABSORPTION. “there can be no suchthing as a formal movement(based principally in New OF problem in poetry which is not a social York City and inthe San Francisco bay By Charles3emtein. Singing Horse Press. 71 pp. Paper $5. one as well.” area) has given us a body of writingthat Silliman, who has published thirteen may bethe most significant in American books of poetry, has been at work on a TfigSCIPHTST.’ByCharles Berrt- . poetry since the modernists.Readers massive project The Alphabet stein. & Moon Press. 179 pp. called since unfamiliar with language writingwill, in Sun 1980. He has completed seventeen of The $16.95, Paper $11.95. all probability,initially read this new Alphabefs twenty-sixbooks, of which poetry with frustration and anger. But FURTHER READING Lit (for the letter X”) is the twelfth. Lit this discomfort, a common reaction to typifiesSilliman’s structuralist work: new art generally, is analogous to the The book consists of twelvesections, antagonism to the poetry of John Ash- IN THE AMERICAN TREE. Edited Ron Silliman. Ndtidnal each with a formal relationship to the bery fifteen years ago orto the writings by number twelve. The guiding structural of Eliot and Found earlier in the cen- Poetty Foundation. 628 pp. $45. Paper $18.95. concept for Lit is stated in section eight, tury. Language writingtoo calls for new from Thoreau’s Journal: “Let there be reading skills. as many distinct plants as the soil and Following upon the most adventur- “LANGUAGE’ POBTRIES. Ed- ited by Douglas Messerli. New the light can sustain.” ous work of Gertrude Stein, Louis Zu- In spite of its careful constructions, kofsky, William Carlos Williams and Directions. 192 pp. $21.95. Paper $8.95. Lit feels neither rigid nor constrained. Jack Spicer,language writing can be SUiman’swriting is fun to read: Its seen as an oppositional literary practice DISTRIBUTION pleasure liesin the gradual unfoldingof that questions many of the assumptions intricate forms and in the mix of puns, of mainstream poetry. Instead of con- The Segue Foundation, 303 East declarations,sounds and sights from sidering poetry as a staging ground for our daily environment,the range of ref- the creation and expression of an “au- EighthStreet, New Pork, NY 10009. erences from philosophy to baseball. In thentic” voice and personality, language the course of Lit, we encounter an out- poetry arises out of an “exploded self,” rageous array of sentences: ”Hjstoryleads blursgenre boundaries (not only the SmU Press Distributidn Inc., 1814 Sari Pablo Avenue,Berkeley, to the t-shirt”; “Between language and boundary between poetry and prose but CA thought/stands cop”; “A minor leaguer 94702. a also the ones between poet and critic, to be named Later”; “I don’t intend to between poetry and criticism) and seeks homogenize my meaning for the sake of Sun & Moon Press, P.O. Box actively collaborative relationships be- enemy”; “The shadowof Stein cross- 481 170, Los Angels, 90048- an tween reader and writer. If there is a CA es the text.” As with the repetition and central assumption in language writing, 9377. modulation of basic rhythm and melo- it is that language is experience-engen- dies in the minimalist music of Philip dering, rather than that the writer’s task “Poetry is part of a larger, oppositional Glass and Steve Reich, key words and is to find language to re-present experi- strategy and cannot beviewed as an end sentences echo throughout Lit, provid- ences that, somehow, exist outsideof or in itself.” His coritribution to language inga pleasing familiarity and recur- prior to language. writing and to our particular momentin rence. Silliman’s humor partakesof the literary histofl is to fuse the aesthetic exuberant, deflatingcoolness of the Hank Lazer’s essays have appeared in and the political: postmodern, whether he is parodying the VirginiaQuarterly, Southern Review, The problem of poetry at the end of proverbial- “Natureabhors a dachs- Boundary 2 and elsewhere. the 20th century is who shall write it, hund”-or parodying the moderns: “I -.July2 /9, 1988 The Nation. 25 kn0w.a houseof mud and wattles made “point scratching paper’s skin”; midway 1 (no I don’t)’’; “Tamed by Milton, I lie in the book, “A/young Asian manwear- I on Mother’s head”; “make it noise”;and ingthick glasses watchesme write this I “The antennae of the race have been through the window of the laundromat “How to tell you how much YS I snapped off by idle youth.” where/two small boys circle the wash- means to me? Not hard atall. I Silliman, who never graduated from ers, playing tag”; near the book’s end, I just tell youhow breathlessly I college but who, by the time he was 21, “activity grounded in its own proceed- I awat each copy, how enthu- I had hadpoems accepted by Poetry, ing,bleeding store-bought ink onto siastically I tell my friends about It, how quickly I devour I Chicago Review, Southern Review, Tri- spongy page.” the contents.I have thorough- I Quarter& and others, can employ a con- There is a distinctlyutopian strain to ly enjoyed each copy smce its I ventionallylyrical style-“India my In- Silliman’s writing, perhaps because‘?he fmt appearance 1~1my mall- I diana, say that particulars do not fade nor writercannot organize her desires for box . I thank you for sendmg I rust consumed in their owndust, or that writing without some visionof the world YS to me so 1 can resubscrlbe I memory’s fair, an old funeral barelythe toward which one hopes to work, and to not only your magazine but to yourphilosophy of the I scene of thought’s return”-but the dis- without having some conceptof how lit- erotic.” I play of a lyrical bauble is not his goal. erature might participate in such a fu- JOYCE WOODY I Instead, he immerses us in a welter-of ture.” Silliman’s writing inspiresus pre- Llncoln Park MI I L details, dictions, awarenesses and per- ciselybecause of its kind of labor: I spectives, as in the fifth paragraph of “Among the several social functions of I the final section of Lit: poetry is that of posing a model of un- The yard understood as a mixture of alienated work: it stands in relation to motives, porch paint spotting sage and the restof society both as utopian possi- ’ spider, sawdust and old boards kill- bility and constant reminder of just how I Journal of Erotlc Arts I ing the lawn, strange bird half yodels bad things are.” I ~l6uIJS&l in the plum tree against the sound of In contrast to Silliman’s poetryof the a garden hose inside a trash can or declarative sentence, Charles Bernstein’s I another bird’s higher trill, ears absorb writing presents greater initial stylistic while the eye scans, skinsenses the difficulties, in part because it blurs the fog’s damp, butt upon the step, sound boundaries between poetry and philos- of a broom in which driveway, wind felt in eyebrow’s hair, here in the little ophy. The Sophist, his most recent col- things (who I am), three flies articulate lection of poetry, attempts to undo the the sky betweenporch & tree, poetry is damage that hasaccumulated since that this thought thus, body but a .Westernculture absorbed Plato’s fear metaphor (who I was) for a medical of poetry. Silliman describes Bernstein’s model of that thing lit. Of late much stance as one that enables him “to ‘liber- work, little light, leads humor stutter- ate’ philosophy from its contextof pro- ing home, getthe lead out (of the pen- fessional pedantry by preferringthe de- cil, the penis), the point scratching centralized,economic marginality of paper‘s skin seen to signify mind means poetry as the discourse through which the made marks the maker‘s mask (meet to proceed.” In Artifice Absorption, science), ear stitched to side of head, of hard wood weds floor to foot (I am a book-length essay on poetics written not that), float from word to word as in the form of a poem, Bernstein de- if there were a reason, as if there were clares his “insistence/thatpoetry be reason,beyond as and es. “Ease understood as epistemological/inquirynsuiry.” ”All persuas~ons, no brulallly.“ awes,” guffaws the talking mule, eyes Like Silliman, he attacks the narrow- as corrective to ear’s reduction of kit- ness of officialverse culture, which ten’sseductive vocabulary turned to Bernstein claims has for the past twenty- W 5 Mewin Ntozake Shange Susan Grlffln Robert Sllverberg Mayurnl Oda “mews” is snot enough to lose amid ty- five years “engagedin militant/(that is to pos the essence of our text beckoning Jean Genet Tee Corlnne Plerre Louys sayungenerously unifonnitarian)/cam- Gary Soto Judy Dater Marge Plercj. assent. Anxiety of response conducts Jessica Hagedorn WllllamKotzw~nkle meaning to lowest denominator, paigns to ’restrict thesubversiveJinde- pendent-of-things nature of language’/ Er~cCdl Marllyn Hacker Ivan Arguelles prefacesforeplay plying tongue to Charlotte Mendez Octavlo Paz punctuation, a setup. “My reputation in thename of the commonvoice, is in your mouth” is in yourmind clarity, sincerity,/or directness of the (read aloud) allows no reading. Speak poem.” Through an oppositional and up or forever hold your piece: this is transgressivepoetic practice, Bernstein YS, P 0 Box 6374, Albany CA 94706 the place. Word bytes man, and the wishes to end the “monotonizing of ex- $20/year Quarterly apple drops. Submit to reading. Now perience” which comesfrom a plot-cen- NAME read this. And this. This. This. - tered insistenceon the soIe legitimacyof ADDRESS This paragraph exemplifies the poet’s “clear writing.” ongoing attempt to make the moment The Sophist, a 177-page collectionof composition part of the text, as well OUTSIDE U 5 ADD Ib/SUKFACE of thirty-six poems written over a ten-year 812/1\IK PER YEAR US FUNDS as some of the ways in which his text period,is Bernstein’s most important engages our own reading,ofit. Here it is book of poetry to date. As the title sug- L””“””””, I

I gats, the book if- poetry as a form Ing, having heard, of crossing, hav- tive view stems from his critique of the of philosophical inquiry and acknowl: ing creased. supposed opposition between thought edges the place of rhetoric as primary in Sow not, lest reap, and choke on and emotion. In “The Only Utopia Is in producing thought and meaning. Para- blooming things: a Now,” Bernstein ridiculesthe assump- doxically, the book is unified by a pMci- Innovation is Satan’s toy, a train tions of much mainstream poetry, par- That rails to semblance, place of ple of difference:Each poem differs radi- memory‘s ticularly the aversion to so-called ab- cally (ii style and layout) from the previ- Loss. Or tossed in tune, emboss with stract thinking: ous one. Throughout his career, Bernstein gloss in- “On this block,” the voice was steady has worked scrupulously to achieve a signias of air. now and almost seemed to sing, ‘’what poetry that resists the staple of the Bernstein can sound the register of is called ’thinking’ is absolutely forbid- M.F.A. industry’s version of poetic craft: late nineteenth-century impressionism, den in the nameof what is called ‘emo- the achievementof a distinct voice; in “From Lines of Swinburne”; “AS a tion.’ You’re only supposed to write as and say what everyoneelse knows, This is not to say that Bernstein is in: voice in a vision that’s vanished/Per- capable ofwriting beautifully lyrical and to write and say it in the way jured dark and barer accusation/Song of everyone else has already heard it. In lines of poetry, as in the concluding lineS a pole congealed/Whose soul a mark lost to !‘The Voyage of Life”: fact, they issue a manual, Acceptable in the whirling snow.” But he serves up Worak and Word Combinations and We lines that, while they havethe sound and everyone talks and writes only in per- Carve and so are carved in twofold rhythm of familiar form,withdraw from a mutations derived from this book.” swiftness fmed content or subject. Unlike Ashbery, But Bernstein’s guiding premise is that Of manifold: the simple act of who finally does settle upon a recogniz- Speak- “emotion doesn’t express itself only in able, laconic, bemused voice, Bernstein words we already know.” He reverses po- gives enough space to so many vocabu- larities on his mainstream opponents: The Graduate Faculty laries and rhetorics that no one style or “The people here are so ideologically position can possibly emergeas compre- pro-emotion they make it into an ab- hensive. His forte as a poet may prove stract concept that is more theoretical Ira Roseman to be a form of radical collage, with a than the intellectuality they renounce.’’ Robert Russell new rapidity and elusiveness. Often, as In an exhortation to all language-users in Silliman’s poetry in prose, he stitches to embrace experimentation and discov- For everyone in The Graduate fabric together at the level of the sen- ery, to resist and question standardiza- R tence, as in “Surface Reflectance”: tions of expression and use, the poem Faculty, A through Z, write or call for a Bulletin: Graduate Faculty, Debby concludes, “Don’t be afraid, gentle New School for. Social Research, had just about tied the bow of her pink writers, gentle speakers, that you won’t 65 Fifth Avenue, NYC 10003 taffeta dress when she heard the porch communicate or will be too intellectual. door creak open. “At least when I close (212) 741-5710 Only whensuch concerns fall away, like my eyes nobody can see me.” Early calluses from our tongues, and we are warning sighs. Buttressing broncho- dilation, arcadian left just to do and be, not trying to com- microseconds jostling pansynchronic municate out of a fear of being unable Against the Current obsidian vmes in the to, will language take its rightful place A socialist bimonthly, currently fea- collation of infrequent mention. as love.” For Bernstein new forms of turing 0 Latin American Women’s written expression affirm our common Encounter, by Joanne Rappaporl In “Amblyopia” various typefaces rein- force the multiple planes of discourse: birthright as language-users, able to 0 Pinochet’s Blueprint for 2000, by question and make the meanings and James Petras 0 Racism &the Uni- Blessed are the grieved for truths by which we situate and construct versity, by Alan Wald 0 After the they at least have seen their Crash, with Paul Sweezy, Robert ourselves in this world. inheritance; the rest wait in maxivans The writings of the language poets, Pollin h Hyman Minsky 0 Eyewit- to collect as available. THE BITTER ness to the Palestinian Uprising, COKE and especially recent work by Silliman interview with Marty Rosenbluth OF JIMMY CARTER; the greased and Bernstein, offer us an accomplished One-year sub: $1 5/Single issue:-$J. palm, the poetry as a revived medium for thought ATC 701 2 Michigan Awe. adored swan; all are crepuscular, and pleasure. Yet, the dismissal and sup Detroit, MI 4821 0 dilated,, dogged, dictated. pression of language writing make perti- Bernstein states quite clearly the kind of nent Gertrude Stein’s observations in her writing and thinking that donot interest 1926 lecture“Composition as Explana- him: Tach limb flows gracefully into/ tion,” where she laments the slow ac- thenext, with the effortlessness of good ceptance of new methods of composition: I:F. STONE AT 80 thinking.” and it is very much too bad, it is so Tapes of thls unique Natlon Insh- Bernstein’s recent work, both in Ar- very much more exciting and satisfa0 IutelNew School event are now tifice of Absorption and The Sophist, tory for everybody if one can have con- available Each two-tape set IS makes it clear that, while a master ironist temporaries, if all one’s contemporaries $20 Send check or money order (in Kierkegaard‘ssense of ,irony a could be one’s contemporaries. ii payable toThe Nationlnstltute to. as “Stone Tapes,” The Nation Insli- withdrawal of content), he is, like Silli- For indeed the language poets present lute, 72 Flflh Avenue, New York. some of the finest expressions of NY 10011 man, a poet given to affirmation and to our a distinctly utopian vision. His affirma- worthy contemporaries. 0

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