Charles Bernstein
Attack of the Difficult Poems: Essays and Inventions
... just when you thought it was safe to go back to the poetry waters ....
Attack of the Difficult Poems
Essays and Inventions
University of Chicago Press
On Attack of the Difficult Poems:
"A superb poet and great inventor of poetry, Charles Bernstein dazzlingly invents the essay for poetry: professing in a gorilla suit and white tuxedo.”—George Lakoff
“This is a smart and invigorating book that triumphantly demonstrates Charles Bernstein’s goals and values. Those who want satire, those who want earnest discussion, those who want information, those who want to get a sense of personality, those who want theory, those who want entertainment, even those who wish to be confirmed in their beliefs and those who wish to nurse their resentments, will all find something here.”—Daisy Fried
“I regret to inform you that Charles Bernstein’s Attack of the Difficult Poems is highly unsuitable (not suitable) for National Poetry Month. Not suitable for acceptance by the publications of the Modern Language Association or its affiliate, the Annual Convention. Not suitable for readers under the age of five. Not suitable for endorsement by the Paris Review. Not suitable for your average television sitcom. Not suitable for tenure. Not suitable for free distribution. Not suitable for variations in the ontological condition. Not suitable for readers of generic poetry. Not suitable for the MFA. For everyone else: priceless.”—Tan Lin
Charles Bernstein is our postmodern jester of American poesy, equal parts surveyor of democratic vistas and scholar of avant-garde sensibilities. In a career spanning thirty-five years and forty books, he has provoked us with writing that is unafraid of the tensions between ordinary and poetic language, and between everyday life and its adversaries. Attack of the Difficult Poems, his latest collection of essays, gathers some of his most memorably irreverent work while addressing seriously and comprehensively the state of contemporary humanities, the teaching of unconventional forms, fresh approaches to translation, the history of language media, and the connections between poetry and visual art.
Applying an array of essayistic styles, Attack of the Difficult Poems ardently engages with the promise of its title. Bernstein introduces his key theme of the difficulty of poems and defends, often in comedic ways, not just difficult poetry but poetry itself. Bernstein never loses his ingenious ability to argue or his consummate attention to detail. Along the way, he offers a wide-ranging critique of literature’s place in the academy, taking on the vexed role of innovation and approaching it from the perspective of both teacher and practitioner.
From blues artists to Tin Pan Alley song lyricists to Second Wave modernist poets, The Attack of the Difficult Poems sounds both a battle cry and a lament for the task of the language maker and the fate of invention.
ISBN-13: 978-0-226-04477-4
ISBN-10: 0-226-04477-7 $26.00
Cover design by Isaac Tobin
I. Professing Poetics
The Difficult Poem
A Blow Is Like an Instrument: The Poetic Imaginary and Curricular Practices
Against National Poetry Month as Such
Invention Follies
Creative Wreading & Aesthetic Judgment
Wreading, Writing, Wresponding
Anything Goes
Our Americas: New Worlds Still in Progress
The Practice of Poetics
II. The Art of Immemorability
Every Which Way but Loose
The Art of Immemorability
Making Audio Visible: Poetry’s Coming Digital Presence
The Bound Listener
Hearing Voices
Objectivist Blues: Scoring Speech in Second Wave Modernist Poetry and Lyrics
III. The Fate of the Aesthetic
McGann Agonist
Poetry and/or the Sacred
The Art and Practice of the Ordinary
Electronic Pies in the Poetry Skies
Poetry Plastique: A Verbal Explosion in the Art Factory (with Jay Sanders)
Speed the Movie or Speed the Brand Name or Aren’t You the Kind That Tells
Breaking the Translation Curtain: The Homophonic Sublime
Fraud’s Phantoms: A Brief Yet Unreliable Account of Fighting Fraud with Fraud
Fulcrum Interview
Radical Jewish Culture / Secular Jewish Practice
Poetry Scene Investigation: A Conversation with Marjorie Perloff
Is Art Criticism Fifty Years Behind Poetry?
Poetry Bailout Will Restore Confidence of Readers
IV. Recantorium
Recantorium (a bachelor machine, after Duchamp after Kafka)
