I did indeed receive your letter urging me to send you the promised text for your special issue on love. But I did warn you that I could tell you only what I think. It was you who questioned me, it is to you that I respond. For I have had, for a long time, nothing more to say about love. It’s a feeling that I believed I had and understood, at a time when I was developing false ideas about life, for in truth I never found any love in it, only in me:
Steve Clay of Granary Books has just released a pdf of the book I did with David Antin in 2002, including our long conversation and Antin's Album Notes.
An selection of poems from Altered State — The New Polish Poetry. Edited by Rod Mengham, Tadeusz Pióro and Piotr Szymor. Todmorden, UK: Arc Publications, 2003. Price: £10.95. This selection was chosen by Rod Mengham and John Tranter.
from Michael Hennessey’s “A Life, Spliced: On the Early Tapeworks of Charles Bernstein,” published in The Salt Companion to Charles Bernstein, edited by William Allegrezza, Salt Publishing, 2012.
“I am a recording instrument” — William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch [1]
“Oh Charles, how could you be so cruel. Charles turn that magadget off … I'm gonna get my own tape recorder and I'm gonna tape your conversations Charles.” — Bernstein’s mother, Sherry (from “#4: a portrait of one being in family living”)[2]
More than thirty-five years after the release of his first book, Asylums, Charles Bernstein is justifiably recognized as one of America’s most influential living poets — a fact attested to by his recent career-spanning collection, All the Whiskey in Heaven: Selected Poems (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2010). While, as a pioneer of Language Writing, Bernstein has made significant contributions to contemporary poetics, his work as a scholar, editor, curator and pedagogue are perhaps of equal, if not greater, importance, and indeed, all of these discrete facets work together in a complementary fashion to construct his overall aesthetic, which is equally a product of numerous extra-literary cultural interests including music, film, drama and the visual arts.
Antonin Artaud: 'The Old Caca Love Box'
A first translation from French by Clayton Eshleman
Paris, 27 December 1946
To M. Gilbert Lély
Sir,
I did indeed receive your letter urging me to send you the promised text
for your special issue on love. But I did warn you that I could tell you only what I
think. It was you who questioned me, it is to you that I respond.
For I have had, for a long time, nothing more to say about love. It’s a feeling
that I believed I had and understood, at a time when I was developing false ideas
about life, for in truth I never found any love in it, only in me:
A Conversation with David Antin: pdf of full 2002 Granary Book
Steve Clay of Granary Books has just released a pdf of the book I did with David Antin in 2002, including our long conversation and Antin's Album Notes.
download free pdf
Ashbery live webcast interview: Audio recording segmented by topic
New at PennSound
On February 12, 2013, I interviewed John Ashbery in his Chelsea (New York, NY) apartment, and moderated a discussion with people gathered at the Kelly Writers House, while many hundreds more watched via live webcast. Thanks to Anna Zalokostas, PennSound’s Ashbery page now offers the audio-only version (in downloadable MP3 format, as always) of the discussion, and, also, links to audio excerpts segmented by topic. Here are those segments:
'The New Polish Poetry'
In Jacket 29
44 New Poems from Poland
An selection of poems from Altered State — The New Polish Poetry. Edited by Rod Mengham, Tadeusz Pióro and Piotr Szymor. Todmorden, UK: Arc Publications, 2003. Price: £10.95. This selection was chosen by Rod Mengham and John Tranter.
[»»] Marcin Baran: Hot embitterments
[»»] Julia Fiedorczuk: November on the Narew
[»»] Darek Foks: Farewell, Haiku
[»»] Mariusz Grzebalski: Slaughterhouse / Then
[»»] Krzysztof Jaworski: I used to be a slender guy
[»»] Bartłomiej Majzel: Scrumping
[»»] Maciej Melecki: Summer, getting away from yourself
Michael Hennessey on Charles Bernstein's 1976 tapework "Class"
from Michael Hennessey’s “A Life, Spliced: On the Early Tapeworks of Charles Bernstein,” published in The Salt Companion to Charles Bernstein, edited by William Allegrezza, Salt Publishing, 2012.
“I am a recording instrument” — William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch [1]
“Oh Charles, how could you be so cruel. Charles turn that magadget off … I'm gonna get my own tape recorder and I'm gonna tape your conversations Charles.” — Bernstein’s mother, Sherry (from “#4: a portrait of one being in family living”)[2]
More than thirty-five years after the release of his first book, Asylums, Charles Bernstein is justifiably recognized as one of America’s most influential living poets — a fact attested to by his recent career-spanning collection, All the Whiskey in Heaven: Selected Poems (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2010). While, as a pioneer of Language Writing, Bernstein has made significant contributions to contemporary poetics, his work as a scholar, editor, curator and pedagogue are perhaps of equal, if not greater, importance, and indeed, all of these discrete facets work together in a complementary fashion to construct his overall aesthetic, which is equally a product of numerous extra-literary cultural interests including music, film, drama and the visual arts.