SOURCE: A review of Rough Trades, in Sulphur, Vol. 30, Spring, 1992, pp. 202-04.

In the following review, Tuma offers a positive assessment of Rough Trades, which he considers Bernstein's “most readable,” “most personalized,” and “best” book.

Does anyone else think it a little weird that Bernstein is now a Sun & Moon Classic, that his most recent collection of poems includes a two-page biography at its end? One thing historians of the avant-garde have not always recognized is the entrepreneurial skill of oppositional poets. Another thing they have sometimes neglected is the speed with which poets associated with “movements” or “groups” move away from these once they have become established. Though it seems odd to say, Rough Trades is partly a retrospective book, one that includes two long poems called “Reading the Tree” (Silliman’s anthology) together with—immediately after—a poem offering sardonic remarks on poetics to The Kootenay...