47970 Alireza Farahbakhsh / Elixir Literature 109 (2017) 47970-47976 Available online at www.elixirpublishers.com (Elixir International Journal)
Literature
Elixir Literature 109 (2017) 47970-47976 Language Poetry: Theory and Practice Alireza Farahbakhsh, Ph D English Literature, University of Guilan, Iran
ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article history: This article aims to review the basic and typical features of Language Poetry and analyse Received: 7 July 2017; them in a number of the best representative of this particular mode of versification. Received in revised form: Language Poetry appeared in the second half of the 20th century and soon found many 2 August 2017; followers and practitioners who celebrated and commended its emphasis on formal and Accepted: 12 August 2017; visual qualities of poetry and regarded linguistic and lexical elements as significant instruments in conveying certain feelings, ideas, or thoughts. The central questions of the Keywords present article are: what are the standard characteristics of Language Poetry and what Language Poetry, functions do they play in a typical Language poem. To answer the question, first a brief Traditional Poetry, historical and conceptual digest of the term is given and then the various formal and Form, thematic implications of the employed Language Poetry aspects are explored in some of Content, and the well-known Language poems including “Poem” and “My/My/My” by Bernstein, “A Poetic Function. Substance in a Cushion” by Stein, “Chronic Meanings” by Perelman, “the nose of kim darby's double” and “NON” by Ron Silliman, “A Song of Degrees” by Zukofsky, and “Fleecing” by James Sherry. The present research argues that all of these poems are clearly theme-based as much as they are clearly form-based. In other words, Language Poetry is not simply and merely about the semantic load or potentials or the visual effect of the selected/arranged words, which may seem nonsensical, since meaning and content – or even the didactic message – is almost always a very important aspect of Language Poetry. © 2017 Elixir All rights reserved.
Introduction Writing movement. African-American poets associated with An important American poetic practice in the late 20th the movement include Hunt, Nathaniel Mackey, and Harryette century is Language Poetry or L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Mullen. P=O=E=T=R=Y, which was named after a magazine bearing On the West Coast, an early seed of Language Poetry was the same title and which flourished in the 1970s. Language the launch of This magazine, edited by Robert Grenier and Poetry, as an avant garde poetic movement, did not simply Barrett Watten, in 1971. Published in New York and edited by intend to bring renewed interest to linguistics or language in Bruce Andrews and Charles Bernstein, general; rather, it took it upon itself to bring about critical L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E ran from 1978 to 1982, and featured awareness concerning the structures, constituents, and codes poetics, forums on writers in the movement, and themes such of poetic language itself. In effect, its principal objective was as "The Politics of Poetry" and "Reading Poetry." Equally to show how linguistic elements are represented and significant for understanding this movement of divergent, formulated to transmit ideas, thoughts, and meaning through though interconnected, poetic practices is Ron Silliman's poetic language, hence the title of the movement. In poetry newsletter Tottel's (197 - 1981), Bruce Andrews's developing their poetics, members of Language Poetry took as selection in a special issue of Toopick (1973), as well as their starting point the emphasis on the method evident in the Tuumba Press edited by Lyn Hejinian and ROOF edited by Modernist poetic tradition, particularly as represented by James Sherry. Some other literary magazines associated with Gertrude Stein and Louis Zukofsky. Language Poetry has been the movement in the 1970s and the 1980s are A Hundred a controversial topic in American letters from the 1970s to the Posters, Big Deal, Dog City, Hills, Là Bas, MIAM, Oculist present. Even the name itself has been problematic: while a Witnesses, and QU. Significant compilations of Language number of poets and critics have used the name of the journal texts include Silliman's selection "The Dwelling Place: 9 to refer to the group, many others have chosen to use the term, Poets" in Alcheringa (1975), "The Politics of the Referent," when they used it at all, without the equal signs (=), while edited by Steve McCaffery for the Toronto-based publication, "Language Writing" and "Language-centred Writing" are also Open Letter (1977), and Charles Bernstein's "A Language commonly used. Beside Stein and Zukofsky, some of the other Sampler" in The Paris Review (1982). In addition to major Language Poets are Steve Benson, Abigail Child, Tina magazines and presses, a number of poetry reading series, Darragh, Carla Harryman, Madeline Gins, Michael Gottlieb, especially in New York, Washington, and San Francisco, were Fanny Howe, Susan Howe, Marjorie Perloff, Bernadette important venues for the establishment of Language Poetry Mayer, James Sherry, Jean Day, Rosmarie Waldrop, and and for the development of dialogue and collaboration among Hannah Weiner. The list accurately reflects the high its practitioners. Most influential gatherings were the Ear Inn proportion of female poets across the spectrum of Language reading series in New York, founded by Ted
Tele: E-mail address: [email protected] © 2017 Elixir All rights reserved 47971 Alireza Farahbakhsh / Elixir Literature 109 (2017) 47970-47976 Greenwald and Charles Bernstein, Folio Books in the mixture of various registers and styles Washington, founded by Doug Lang, and the Grand Piano index-writing or writing long lists of similar or similar reading series in San Francisco. sounding words Discussion On the nature and function of Language Poetry, Michael In the present article, first the characteristic and typical Cuddihy has written that Language Poets features of Language Poetry are enumerated and introduced; see the language and language habits poets inherit as on the next level, these formal and conceptual qualities are hindrances to perception and feeling, but even more, to the identified and discussed in a number of the best and most precise expression of these. However esoteric or difficult renowned representatives of this particular mode of writing. much of their work may seem to some people, their concern The reasons for their application and their stylistic and with form and the investigation of the structure of the self intellectual relevance are also explicated. The central through the medium of language aims at the liberation of the questions of the present research, consequently, are: What are larger society. If there is an avant-garde in poetry today, it will the general and standard characteristics of Language Poetry most likely be found among them. We want our readers to be (both theme-wise and form-wise) and how and to what able to sample the modes of this writing instead of merely purpose are they employed in a number of Language poems? hearing about it. (in Silliman, 1982, i) The selected poets are Charles Bernstein, Gertrude Stein, Bob Explicating the term in his Poetry and Language Writing, Perelman, Ron Silliman, and Louis Zukofsky. Obviously, Arnold has asserted that Language Poetry there are so many contemporary poets who can be, one way or has been variously defined as non-referential or of another, linked to Language Poetry that it is impossible to diminished reference, as textual poetry or a critique of write about their poems in a single article. This article, expressivism, as a reaction against the „workshop‟ poetry therefore, focuses on a few but massively influential Language enshrined in creative writing departments across the United writers whose poems capture all of the standard and recurrent States. It has been variously described as non-academic, aspects of Language Poetry. Having said that, not all of the theory conscious, avant-garde, postmodern and oppositional. poems composed by these writers are necessarily samples of (2007, 1) Language Poetry. The poems (or excerpts thereof) for analysis In the same vein, defining Language Poetry, Shetly has include: “Poem” and “My/My/My” by Bernstein, “A argued that “being members of the avant-garde, its exponents Substance in a Cushion” by Stein, “Chronic Meanings” by could lead critics into the thickets of radical theory” in which Perelman, “the nose of kim darby's double” and “NON” by they may or may not have believed (1993, 139). It does not Ron Silliman, “A Song of Degrees” by Zukofsky, and imply that Language Poetry is only a sort of abstract, purely “Fleecing” by James Sherry. experimental, or automatic writing which hails and celebrates Typical features of Language Poetry as a highly and aestheticism, formal or linguistic effects of word and phrases, characteristically experimental poetic practice include: or the poetics of theory-based writing. In contrast, Language emphasis on the involvement of the reader as well as on Poetry may contain strong social or personal themes and non-narrative, non-conventional poetic form. As Silliman has messages. As Hartley has asserted, “most Language poets put it, “the reader is forced to deduce [meaning] from the attempt to remind us of the socially contrived basis of any partial views and associations posited in each sentence" (1987, writing. They do not do so, however, by abandoning modes of 84). writing, for such an action is impossible. It is the mode-that-is- random thoughts, observations, and at times seemingly meant, so to speak, the exploration of the possibilities for nonsensical expressions (McGann, 198, xii) meaning-production, which lies behind most Language little or no sympathy with the presence of the speaker or of poetry” (1989, 3). the poet Language Poets also drew on the philosophical works of the discontinuity and fragmentation of lines, which replace Ludwig Wittgenstein, especially his concepts of language- stanzas as the bases of the structure of the poem (Perloff, games and meaning as use. They rejected the use of expressive 1998, 3) lyric sentiment present in a number of earlier poetry the rejection of the boundaries between prose and poetry, movements of the 20th century to which the Language Poets especially in longer texts, so that poetry approaches prose felt a kinship. Language Poets' conscious attempt was emphasis on visual effects and the formation of words on espousing the work of the Modernist poetry of the first half of paper the 20th century with the poststructuralist work of the late the formation of lexical clusters or random lexical collages 1950s and the 1960s, during which time certain groups of which are seemingly meaningless poets had followed William Carlos Williams in his use of belief in Bernstein‟s dictum “there is no natural writing idiomatic American English instead of what they considered style” (1997, 43) the 'heightened,' or overtly poetic language favoured by New belief in “the notion of prosodic variety” as formulated and Critics. In particular, New York School poets like John practised by Zukofsky (Quartermain, 2002, 62) Ashbery and Frank O'Hara and The Black Mountain poets like systematic and deliberate derangement of grammar and Robert Creeley and Robert Duncan stressed both speech and syntax via shifting, inserting, or deleting certain words or everyday language in their poetry. Many of these poets used ignoring the rules of spacing, punctuation, capitalisation, or procedural methods based on mathematical sequences and other mechanics of writing other logical and organising devices to structure their poems in the coinage of new words by intentional deletions and such a way that their carefully constructed and meticulously- omissions or word combinations crafted form is depleted of any premeditated content, a the intensity and force of linguistic units and blank spaces practice which Language Poets did not hesitate to borrow. In the frequency of apparently meaningless lexical repetitions fact, the application of process, especially at the level of the and bizarre and incongruous juxtapositions of words, phrases, sentence, was to become the basic tenet of the Language or fragments Poetry praxis. 47972 Alireza Farahbakhsh / Elixir Literature 109 (2017) 47970-47976 However, unlike New York School poets and The Black strange, rending: Mountain poets, Language Poets typically underlined as sound of some importance metonymy, synecdoche, and extreme instances of paratactic diffuses structures in their compositions, which, even when employing “as dark red circles” everyday speech, created a far different texture, digress, reverberate incomprehensible and difficult to understand at first glance. connect, unhook. On the other hand, the New American poets privileged self- Your clothes, for example expression, while Language Poets tended to downplay face, style expression and regard the poem as a construction in and of radiate mediocrity language itself. However, it must be added that for all their coyly, slipping playful, throw-away appearance, considerable knowledge and & in how many minutes literary skill is needed for deciphering Language poems as body & consciousness their linguistic fragments have to be entertaining and at the deflect, “flame on flare” same time and at some level, meaningful or aesthetically, missed purpose. verbally, or formally impressive. Your eyes Most of the poets whose work falls within the scope of glaze Language Writing are still alive and still active contributors. thought stumbles, blinded During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Language Poetry was speck upon speck widely received as a significant discipline in innovative poetry ruffling edges. and Postmodern literature (see the next chapter) in the United “But do not be delighted yet.” States, a trend accentuated by the fact that some of its leading The distance positively entrances. proponents took up academic posts in Poetics, Creative Take out pad & pen Writing, and English Literature departments in prominent crystal cups, velvet ashtray American universities. This implies that Language Poetry with the gentility of easy movement remains an interesting legacy that will continue to bewilder evasive, unaccountable and invigorate generations of poets and readers. & puffing signs After the presented import on the nature and function of detach, unhinge Language poetry, now the selected Language poems (listed beyond weeds, chill earlier) are concisely commented on. The first poem for a brief with enthusiastic smile analysis is Bernstein‟s “Poem”: & new shoes here. Forget. “by a crude rotation” There are simply tones hang cloudy, breezy a bulk of person birds & so on. “ascending," “embodied.” (1978, 59) Sit down with it. Some of the salient Language Poetry features of the poem It‟s time now. are: aversion from didacticism, standard grammar or There is no more natural sight. mechanics of writing, as well as of rhyme and traditional Anyway transform everything metrical patterns, prose-like poetry, run-on lines, juxtaposition silence, trees of unrelated images, ideas, or concepts, internal rhyming and commitment, hope alliteration, emphasis on the linguistic and lexical potentials this thing inside you and thrust of words and syllables, and bold and unreserved flow, this movement of eyes self-expression. Theme-wise, explicitly or implicitly ideas set of words include: nostalgia, loneliness, confusion, ignorance, and all turns, all grains. mediocrity of contemporary life. In the next poem, At night, shift “My/My/My” by the same writer, the remarkable formal and comets, “twirling planets, conceptual elements are: repetition, collocation of words and suns, bits of illuminated pumice” ideas, which at the first glance seem to have been randomly pointing out, in harsh tones deployed and arranged, and the inclusion of a rather easily cancers & careers. noticeable theme, namely, selfishness and passion for “Newer Limoges please.” possession: “my pillow/ my shirt/ my house/ my supper/ my Pick some value tooth/ my money/ my kite/ my job/ my bagel/ my spatula/ my mood, idea, type or smell of paper blanket/ my arm/ my painting/ my fountain pen/ my desk/ my iridescent, lackluster room/ my turn/ my book/ my hopelessness/ my wallet/ my &, “borne in peach vessels," print/ my sock/ my toe/ my stamp/ my introduction/ my just think luggage/ my plan/ my mistake/ my monkey/ my friend …” “flutter & cling” (1978, 97). On Bernstein‟s general poetic style, which is also with even heavier sweep applicable to both of the selected poems, Aji has written that unassuaged in his poems, the which are the things line is disrupted, meets an obstacle, becomes a line in the of a form, etc strictest sense of the term, loses itself in a swirl. The itinerary that inhere. of the text, whose mantra-like repetitiveness induces a Fair adjustment numbing of the quest for meaning, places the word in a becomes space between landscape, as suggested by the title. Yet one is also forced to crusts of people 47973 Alireza Farahbakhsh / Elixir Literature 109 (2017) 47970-47976 see that the word itself creates this landscape. (in Perloff and The presence of an illusion. Dworkin, 2009, 158) Symbiosis of home and prison. The next selected Language poem, Stein‟s “A Substance Then, having become superfluous, time. in a Cushion,” is manifestly written in prose, not in poetry, One has to give to. even though it is quite rich in its astute application of various Taste: the first and last. kinds of figures of speech: I remember the look in. The change of color is likely and a difference a very little It was the first time. difference is prepared. Sugar is not a vegetable. Some gorgeous swelling feeling that. Callous is something that hardening leaves behind what will Success which owes its fortune. be soft if there is a genuine interest in there being present as Come what may it can't. many girls as men. Does this change. It shows that dirt is clean There are a number of. when there is a volume. But there is only one. A cushion has that cover. Supposing you do not like to That's why I want to … (1993, 138) change, supposing it is very clean that there is no change in In the extract, almost all of the lines are grammatically appearance, supposing that there is regularity and a costume is incomplete, if not so semantically, too. Each line consists of that any the worse than an oyster and an exchange. Come to five words followed by an unexpected full stop; this might season that is there any extreme use in feather and cotton. Is indicate the envisaged sudden death of the speaker in the there not much more joy in a table and more chairs and very “Symbiosis of home and prison.” The truncated lines can be likely roundness and a place to put them. taken as a reflection of the speaker‟s truncated life (here that A circle of fine card board and a chance to see a tassel. of Lee Hickman, who had contracted AIDS). In other words, a What is the use of a violent kind of delightfulness if there is no deliberate and well-planned form here denotes arbitrary and pleasure in not getting tired of it. The question does not come imminent death. As in other Language poems, rhyme and before there is a quotation. In any kind of place there is a top metre are absent, scarce, or even accidental. Other to covering and it is a pleasure at any rate there is some conspicuous formal features are alliteration and lexical venturing in refusing to believe nonsense. It shows what use repetition. It must be added that the speaker talks about an there is in a whole piece if one uses it and it is extreme and impending death in a non-sentimental and detached way and very likely the little things could be dearer but in any case focuses, instead, on mundane and down-to-earth objects and there is a bargain and if there is the best thing to do is to take it routines of daily life such as making a phone call, talking away and wear it and then be reckless be reckless and resolved about the weather, eating, or making decisions. The on returning gratitude … (1997, 3-4) phlegmatic tone of the speaker may paradoxically intensify the In the poem, as Mable has contended, “every word lives, underlying tension of the poem and his inner turmoil or and apart from concept, it is so exquisitely rhythmical and sympathy; it can be interpreted as his desperate and futile cadenced that if we read it aloud and receive it as pure sound, attempt to forget about a looming tragic end. This is what it is like a sensuous music” (in Stein, 2012, 2). The sentences Perelman has said about the poem: and phrases seem to be delirious statements in a trance-like 'CM' [“Chronic Meanings”] was written on hearing that a state just before falling into sleep; nevertheless, like other friend had AIDS; it is an attempt on my part to see what typical Language poems, it gradually becomes more and more happened to meaning as it was interrupted. If one expects a evocative and suggestive. As Daniel has argued, Stein “needed poem to be more or less narrative, focusing sharply or softly to speak a language that was deliberately removed from, at on spots of time, "Chronic Meanings" might feel evasive. But odds with, the ordinary. She wrote of her own feeling of being in fact I was trying to be direct; the sentences came as matter- „misplaced‟, of being a „stranger‟” (2009, 71). Non-sequiturs, of-factly from my experience and imagination as I could gibberish phrases, and grammatical and stylistic mistakes manage. At the same time I knew I would be writing down abound in the excerpt; however, the reader soon realises that a only the first five words of each sentence, so there was a great thought or a clue is cleverly embedded in each one of them. In pressure for some sort of concision, though I certainly wasn't this lie the pleasure and the artistry of Stein‟s Language after a haiku-like or 'poetic' compression: I wanted to feel poems. what real-life, conventional articulation felt like when it was The following extract from Bob Perelman‟s “Chronic halted in the middle. I did work on (edit) the results to avoid Meanings,” published in his Virtual Reality, is the next sample habit and redundancy. As opposed to the classical received for Language poetry, which deserves a brief treatment: sense of poetry outbraving time, “Chronic Meanings” seems to The phone is for someone. me to face the other way, and to try to register time‟s The next second it seemed. evanescence." (1996, 1) But did that really mean. The connotation is that Language Poetry can be very Yet Los Angeles is full. theme-based as it is evidently language-based. Naturally enough I turn to. The following lines are extracted from Silliman‟s “the Some things are reversible, some. nose of kim darby's double.” The usual Language Poetry You don't have that choice. stylistic tropes are discernible here, too – the lack or scarcity I'm going to Jo's for. of punctuation marks and capitalisation, the collocation of Now I've heard everything, he. seemingly haphazardly arranged words and phrases, One time when I used. incomplete sentences, sense behind apparent nonsensicality, The amount of dissatisfaction involved. colloquialism, the absence of rhyme and metrical patterns, and The weather isn't all it's. irregular stanzaic clusters. As in other samples of Language You'd think people would have. poems, the lines are loaded with imagery, poetic devices, and Or that they would invent. motifs. At least if the emotional. Canyons, paths 47974 Alireza Farahbakhsh / Elixir Literature 109 (2017) 47970-47976 dug thru the snow thermos looks like Tunnels fire extinguisher. Ants won't cross the walls as high as trail of shoulders petroleum jelly. Hat The weight of it with no bill, cubist heavier leather beret. when it begins to melt Sore on my tongue, smell & then, at sunset of dung. Voice's choices still midafternoon sight's relight. In gaol the temperature drops they make you surrender wind over the ridge your panty hose so that by dawn to prevent suicide. each surface The crowd of protesters hardens into ice approach, chanting Dams clog the drains "out of the boutiques to turn the window and into the streets." facing north Seagull brushes into a waterfall . . . up against my cap. Driving north Rude Work Ahead. past the mall turn, King Velcro strap, of Prussia, past Bridgeport reusable cast. and the narrow brick streets of Norr'stown Dog's name the road eases up, what is Cutty. was once country Eco-Brutalism, Deep into a more purely rural Semiology. Sturgeon suburbiana (golf course General. Boot failure! blanketed in white Odd trim A gas station that has not yet of the ear's rim. turned into a minmart The neck seen as a tube is Swath cut seen incorrectly. by the powerlines Post-its peeking right thru the old quarry, the pit from a three-ring binder. filled with water Dog snarls is called a lake, each behind window of new townhouse with its private dock locked Rabbit. tho if you look upstairs Morning's magic means you will discover the doors to the closets make my all made of vinyl daily bread. Ears Someone in another room is singing the alphabet put head in Barely visible in the high slush brackets. Hypervariables fog mixed with rain in DNA show up a woman waits for her bus on screen like The form of the flower Bar code exfoliating on a cereal box. petals dropping away Rushed writing. to reveal a new, further flower one is to words now red, now blue always an outsider, each shape a perpetual tho they invade your head, revision, this colonize dreams … (Ibid., 314) leaf thick and milky, this Zukofsky‟s “A Song of Degrees” is the next Language spiky, hard, this Poetry sample. It is a minimalist poem which comprises of covered with the finest fuzz only nine words arranged in different fugue-like permutations blossoms … (2004, 205) and combinations. It brings to the mind Scroggins‟s Many of the afore-mentioned elements are also present in observation that “Zukofsky looked to the fugal forms of the following lines from Silliman‟s “NON,” which is also a Johann Sebastian Bach and other baroque composers for good example for Language Poetry concrete or pattern poetry. formal analogies in making his poem” (2015, 37). All of the Like other Language poems briefly introduced so far, the words, either partially or fully, rhyme; also, all of the words poem exhibits rather easily detectable themes; here, they alliterate – two words, namely, “mirror” and “error,” through include senility, imprisonment, depression, death, social repetition. The most remarkable aspect of the poem, in my unrest, mechanicality and superficiality of contemporary life: opinion, is the shift of meaning caused by the shift of words or Proto-mallie: the flaneur. punctuation marks in the short phrasal clusters. "The older I get the more Ungrammaticality, ellipses, and reductionism (as the poem floors I discover proceeds) are other stylistic tropes. at Macys." Little red (Clear mirror) 47975 Alireza Farahbakhsh / Elixir Literature 109 (2017) 47970-47976 Care. The last Language poem to be tersely treated in the His error. present article is Sherry‟s “Fleecing.” The poem clearly lacks In her care- a traditional poetic structure; in fact, we can hardly call it a Is clear. piece of poetry. In addition, figures of speech are absent or Hear, her rare, to say the least (in the excerpt, seemingly coincidental Clear alliteration is the most conspicuous literary device). The text Mirror, opens with a quotation from Pierre-Jean de Beranger (1780- Care 1857), whom Portis calls “the most popular French His error. songwriters of all time” (2004, 11). In her, “Alas! poor sheep! You will always be sheared!” – Beranger Care Mall Is clear. Questionless motive (duck in pond); on the want market say Hear her anything. Clear mirror What angel demolition team. That fret shorn. Care his error Back and front to wall. Sanguine sanguinary. In her care Meanwhile continue without lives – a little fish and a little Is clear salad. The pitcher lacked likes the batter. Hear But if we are good, he is not us. Paki bashing. Equal rots. Her A free license. Take my work off me for money. Moil of Clear chickens. Mirror Associative giggle. Last licks. To take to the cleaner, if you Care choose a la mode, again not or but and. His The construction of personality in order to .... Error in How the phone call peeled the onion for Herbie. Once upon it Her perch. Fireescape tomatoes. Care To make her cat less hot. To run to fat to mean when the Is clear police are after you. What grammatical must rhetorical would. Hear Plum wine substitutes for plumbline. Her Sheer hype of forgetfulness to let her lie. There there. If you Clear, honestly want to know, No. Mirror, I will not give you a quarter reminds me of the time means Care took me for a bundle. Although adjacent to the summer His Vatican, he ignores proximity. Causation first or last the way Error in you're looking. Her- To avoid similar embarrassment, he spent most of the winter Care rubbing against a tree. Yes, I would like to, sometime … (in Is Silliman, 1982, 109) Clear. (2006, 110) Many of the lines and phrases are ungrammatical and The title of the poem echoes Pslams 120 to 134 in the Old incomprehensible; also, some of them are semantically and Testament (beginning with “In my distress I cried unto the syntactically incomplete. Despite all this, the title and a good Lord” and ending with “The Lord that made heaven and earth number of phrases provide us with useful clues for / bless thee out of Zion”) each known as “A Song of Degrees.” demystifying the text. The word “Fleecing,” for instance, Like the Biblical prayer, the poem suggests a purification means „ripping someone off‟ or „defrauding someone‟; it process or a spiritual progression: “error”/ “distress” follows that those who are „ripped off‟ are ordinary people terminates in clarity / blessing. According to Foley, who are compared to “poor sheep.” The words “Mall” and Zukofsky‟s title emphasizes the religious aspect of the “moil” both underscore the negative connotation of poem … The New Scofield Reference Bible comments that the “Fleecing.” In the context, therefore, the title of the poem word "degrees" is better rendered by "ascents": "these Psalms refers to widespread materialism, underpayment, and unfair were either sung by pilgrims on the ascending march from the and exorbitant taxation. Beranger‟s comic opener, as a result, Babylonian captivity to Jerusalem, or…were sung by can be said to intensity the tragic drudgery of tax-payers or worshipers from all parts of Palestine as they went up to their probable bankruptcy. Form and formal deliberation here Jerusalem for the great festivals. An alternate view is that the are not as poignant as, for example, in “NON” or “A Song of headings, „A Song of Ascents,‟ refer to the fifteen steps Degrees,” but it can be argued that the formal sloppiness of leading to Court of Israel in the Temple, and that these Psalms the poem can signify monetary or financial chaos and were sung on these steps" … the "degrees" are perhaps the slovenliness of the society. In other words, formal anarchy different modes of understanding we have as the poem‟s stands for and speaks of economic anarchy. As in the previous syntax constantly causes the words to change contexts. (2007, sample Language poems, language and linguistic constituents 5) accommodate certain ideas and themes. The religious overtones of the poem as well as its Conclusion thematic and semantic load remind us, yet again, that This article has sought to review the basic formal and Language Poetry is not simply and merely about form and the conceptual elements of Language Poetry as an important constituents of language; put another way, Language Poetry postmodern style in writing poems and identify and explore can be as meaning-conscious as it is form-conscious. them in some of its best representatives. The poems for analysis have been: 47976 Alireza Farahbakhsh / Elixir Literature 109 (2017) 47970-47976 Charles Bernstein‟s “Poem” and “My/My/My,” Gertrude