Left, Louis Zukofsky c. 1940; Right, Mikhl Likht, c. 1936
[EDITOR'S NOTE. To say again what I’ve been driving at in previous postings, the attempt here is to bring into the open a remarkable Yiddish-American poet whose master work, Processions, accompanies & may even prefigure the long-poem experiments of English language masters like Pound, Williams, & Zukofsky, with all of whom he was in contact. If so that might in itself suggest a rethinking of experimental American modernism & open the possibility of a multilingual history of twentieth-century American poetry. The groundwork here has been initiated by Ar
[This is the final prose piece in Eye of Witness: A Jerome Rothenberg Reader, which brings together aspects of my work in a range of forms & genres (poetry, prose, performance, plays, poetics, visual, verbal, & vocal). Co-edited with Heriberto Yépez & published in early September by Joe Phillips & Black Widow Press. (J.R.)]
[In advance of publication September 2013 by Black Widow Press, co-edited by Heriberto Yépez & Jerome Rothenberg]
A Re-Vision of Jerome Rothenberg’s Poetry and Poetics
Jerome Rothenberg’s poetic work began in the late fifties. It was after his stay in Europe that his writing took the form of what would become a life-long program. His first published book, New Young German Poets (1959), already showed his characteristic interest in translation, poetics, avant-garde writing, and their relation to the human condition as a deeper presence restructuring the poem. Although his work can be associated with that of his early group—David Antin and Armand Schwerner, among others—Rothenberg’s work is unique. He shares techniques, contexts and a literary/cultural field with others, but his ends are sui generis.
Harpy with Bull’s Head and Four Little Girls on Top of a Tower with Black Flag Plate 13 from the Vollard Suite, December 1934
Translation from French by Jerome Rothenberg
The scene – a vegetable garden almost smack in its center a well.
four little girls singing – we’re not gonna go to the woods no more the laurel trees are down on the floor hey the beautiful babe will go pick them up then we’ll come out to dance hey just like they dance oh you sing dance & hug anybody you want
Poems and poetics