This section contains 1,622 words (approx. 6 pages at 300 words per page) |
SOURCE: A review of A Poetics, in College Literature, Vol. 20, No. 2, June, 1993, pp. 219-21.
In the following review of A Poetics, Baker approves of Bernstein's “nonconformist stance,” but finds shortcomings in what he considers Bernstein’s outmoded Marxist assumptions and lack of elaboration on the link between poetry and society.
Charles Bernstein straightforwardly, and without apology, represents a difficult area of United States cultural production—experimental poetry. Though he is introduced at lectures and in jacket blurbs as the author of nineteen (or more) books of poetry, you will not find many of these titles in the Library of Congress catalogue (trust me, I’ve looked). Paradoxically, it is as a writer of polemical criticism that this cofounder of the journal L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E has come to some prominence. Since he has been teaching in the Poetics Program of the State University of...
This section contains 1,622 words (approx. 6 pages at 300 words per page) |