The marginalization of poetry : language writing and literary history
Language writing, the most controversial avant-garde movement in contemporary American poetry, appeals strongly to writers and theorists interested in the politics of postmodernism and in iconoclastic poetic form. Drawing on materials from popular culture, avoiding the standard stylistic indications of poetic lyricism, and using nonsequential sentences are some of the ways in which language writers make poetry a more open and participatory process for the readers. Reading this kind of writing, however, may not come easily in a culture where poetry is treated as property of a special class. It is this barrier that Bob Perelman seeks to break down in this fascinating and comprehensive account of the language-writing movement. A leading language writer himself, Perelman offers insights into the history of the movement and discusses the political and theoretical implications of the writing - including postmodern fragmentation, the poetics of avant-garde formations, the politics of multicultural poetics, and gender and the avant-garde. He provides detailed readings of work by Lyn Hejinian, Ron Silliman, and Charles Bernstein, among many others, and compares it to a wide range of other contemporary and modern American poetry
Print Book, English, ©1996
Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., ©1996
Criticism, interpretation, etc
viii, 187 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
9780691021393, 9780691021386, 0691021392, 0691021384
33900140
Acknowledgments1The Marginalization of Poetry32Language Writing and Literary History113Here and Now on Paper: The Avant-garde Particulars of Robert Grenier384Parataxis and Narrative: The New Sentence in Theory and Practice595Write the Power: Orthography and Community796Building a More Powerful Vocabulary: Bruce Andrews and the World (Trade Center)967This Page Is My Page, This Page Is Your Page: Gender and Mapping1098An Alphabet of Literary History1449A False Account of Talking with Frank O'Hara and Roland Barthes in Philadelphia156Notes167Index183