One thing I notice in this discussion is that in Britain "language poetry"
seems roughly equivalent to the essays by Watten, bernstein, Perelman,
Silliman. I think in the U.S. the term's designation has really shifted.
First of all, Charles Bernstein (who has a fabulous new book of
essays/poems coming out) is now discussing very different issues and one
cannot lump him together with B. Watten, who recently wrote (for
Impercipient lecture series in Providence) that piece on cultural poetics
which is a not-so-thinly veiled attack on Charles!
Rather, language poetry, if we still want to use the term, or the new
"innovative poetries" or whatever, is now largely dominated by
women--sorry boys!--like Lyn Hejinian, Susan Howe, Joan Retallack, Rae
Armantrout,Kathleen Fraser,Rosmarie Waldrop, and younger generation of Cole Swensen, Diane Ward, etc.
and their British and Canadian and Australian counterparts.
So: as the man said, Forget Foucault, or rather forget B. Watten and
these stale old arguments about West Coast vs. East Coast groupings and
"Total Syntax." One great place to begin is with the British anthology
OUT OF EVERYWHERE. That's language poetry if you want to read some. I
don't mean to denigrate the great men in the movement like McCaffery and
Silliman but I want to get away from the narrow notion of equating l
poetry with the essays in New Sentence, Total Syntax, etc.
Marjorie Perloff
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|