SOURCE: “‘Rough Trades’: Charles Bernstein and the Currency of Poetry,” in Canadian Review of American Studies, Vol. 27, No. 3, 1997, pp. 205-14.

In the following essay, McGuirk considers Bernstein's view of poetry in terms of economics and social purpose and his distinctly American perspective.

I began this essay with a heuristic suggested to me by the topic of the conference where this article was presented, by the title of a book by the American “Language” poet and theorist Charles Bernstein—Rough Trades (1991)—and by Bernstein’s frequent appearances in literary venues in Canada. Bernstein’s work might be read, I thought, as a response to the question: Is poetry marked by trade?

The question is a rhetorical one (the answer is supposed to be yes); and it is also a counterquestion to a prior rhetorical one (which would also suppose the answer yes): isn’t poetry’s trademark, indeed, its...