The Marginalization of Poetry: Language Writing and Literary HistoryLanguage writing, the most controversial avant-garde movement in contemporary American poetry, appeals strongly to writers and readers 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. 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. A variety of issues are addressed in the following chapters: "The Marginalization of Poetry," "Language Writing and Literary History," "Here and Now on Paper," "Parataxis and Narrative: The New Sentence in Theory and Practice," "Write the Power," "Building a More Powerful Vocabulary: Bruce Andrews and the World (Trade Center)," "This Page Is My Page, This Page Is Your Page: Gender and Mapping," "An Alphabet of Literary Criticism," and "A False Account of Talking with Frank O'Hara and Roland Barthes in Philadelphia." |
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... verbal debris that always occurs during those terrible “ nine reigns " when " there was no literary production . None at all . " Similarly , “ in ” and " here " would be ultimately dead ends if they were associated too closely with , if ...
... verbal fracturing . This writing was irregularly accompanied by much less fractured theories . Some such as Silliman with conscious Marxist critiques connected commodity and referential fetishism ; others with less fluency in theory ...
... verbal perception : where Jameson reads signifying chains snapping , Silliman reads the technicolor epics of false consciousness being swept away.24 But alongside such de- narrativization , I want to emphasize ( though Silliman often ...
Contents
Two Language Writing and Literary History | 11 |
The Avantgarde Particulars | 38 |
The New Sentence in Theory | 59 |
Copyright | |
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Other editions - View all
The Marginalization of Poetry: Language Writing and Literary History Bob Perelman Limited preview - 1996 |
The Marginalization of Poetry: Language Writing and Literary History Bob Perelman Limited preview - 1996 |
The Marginalization of Poetry: Language Writing and Literary History Bob Perelman Limited preview - 2021 |