Language poets
Encyclopedia
The Language poets are an avant garde group or tendency in United States poetry that emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In developing their poetics
, members of the Language school took as their starting point the emphasis on method evident in the modernist
tradition, particularly as represented by Gertrude Stein
and Louis Zukofsky
. Language poetry is also an example of poetic postmodernism
. Its immediate postmodern precursors were the New American poets
, a rubric which includes the New York School
, the Objectivist poets
, the Black Mountain School
, the Beat
poets, and the San Francisco Renaissance
.
While there is no such thing as a "typical" Language poem, certain aspects of the writing of language poets became heavily identified with this group: writing
that actively challenged the "natural
" presence
of a speaker behind the text; writing that emphasized disjunction and the materiality
of the signifier
; and prose poetry
, especially in longer forms than had previously been favored by English language writers, and other nontraditional and usually nonnarrative forms.
Language poetry has been a controversial topic
in American letters
from the 1970s to the present. Even the name
itself has been controversial: while a number of poets and critics have used the name of the journal to refer to the group, many others have chosen to use the term, when they used it at all, without the equals sign
s, while "language writing" and "language-centered writing" are also commonly used, and perhaps the most generic terms. None of the poets associated with the tendency have used the equal signs when referring to the writing collectively, and its appearance in some critical articles can be read as an index of the author's outsider status.
Online writing samples of many language poets can be found on internet sites, including blogs and sites maintained by authors and through gateways such as the Electronic Poetry Center
, PennSound
, and UbuWeb
.
magazine, edited by Robert Grenier
and Watten, in 1971. Coming out of New York, L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E
, edited by Bruce Andrews
and Charles Bernstein
, ran from 1978 to 1982, and featured poetics, forums on writers in the movement, and themes such as "The Politics of Poetry" and "Reading Stein." Equally significant for the understanding of this movement of divergent, though interconnected, poetry practices that emerged in the 1970s was Ron Silliman
's poetry newsletter Tottel's (1970–81), and Bruce Andrews
's selection in a special issue of Toopick (1973), as well as Lyn Hejinian
's editing of Tuumba Press and James Sherry's editing of ROOF magazine. The first significant collection of language-centered poetics was "The Politics of the Referent," edited by Steve McCaffery
for the Toronto-based publication, Open Letter (1977).
In an essay from the first issue of This, Grenier declared: "I HATE SPEECH". Grenier's ironic statement (itself a speech act), was, in the context of the essay in which it occurred, along with a questioning attitude to the referentiality of language evidenced even in the magazine's title, later claimed by Ron Silliman, in the introduction to his anthology In the American Tree, as an epochal moment—a rallying cry for a number of young U.S. poets who were increasingly dissatisfied with the poetry of the Black Mountain poets
and Beat
poets.
However, it was equally the range of contemporary poetries that focused on "language
" in This, Tottel's, L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, and also in several other key publications and essays of the time, rather than a single declarative sentence, that established the field of discussion that would emerge as Language (or L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E) poetry.
Indeed, during the 1970s, a number of magazines emerged who published poets who would become associated with the Language movement. Some other literary magazines associated with the movement in the 1970s and 1980s included A Hundred Posters (edited by Alan Davies
), Big Deal, Dog City, Hills, Là Bas, MIAM, Oculist Witnesses, QU, and Roof. Poetics Journal, which published writings in poetics and was edited by Lyn Hejinian
and Barrett Watten
, appeared from 1982 to 1998. Significant early gatherings of Language writing included Silliman's selection "The Dwelling Place: 9 Poets" in Alcheringa, (1975) Bruce Andrews's selection in Toopick, (1973) and Charles Bernstein's "A Language Sampler" in The Paris Review(1982)
Aside from magazines and presses, a number of poetry reading series, especially in New York, Washington, D.C. and San Francisco, were important venues for the performance of this new poetry and for the development of dialogue and collaboration among poets. Generally considered most important were the Ear Inn reading series in New York, founded in 1978 by Ted Greenwald and Charles Bernstein and later organized through James Sherry's Segue Foundation and curated by Mitch Highfill, Jeanne Lance, Andrew Levy, Rob Fitterman, Laynie Brown, Alan Davies, and others; Folio Books in Washington, D.C., founded by Doug Lang; and the Grand Piano reading series in San Francisco, which was curated by Barrett Watten
, Ron Silliman
, Tom Mandel
, Rae Armantrout
, Ted Pearson
, Carla Harryman
, and Steve Benson
at various times.
Poets, some of whom have been mentioned above, who were associated with the first wave of Language poetry include: Rae Armantrout
, Steve Benson
, Abigail Child
, Clark Coolidge
, Tina Darragh
, Alan Davies
, Carla Harryman
, P. Inman
, Lynne Dryer, Madeline Gins
, Michael Gottlieb
, Fanny Howe
, Susan Howe
, Jackson Mac Low
(1922—2004), Tom Mandel
, Bernadette Mayer
, Steve McCaffery
, Michael Palmer
, Ted Pearson
, Bob Perelman
, Nick Piombino
, Peter Seaton
(1942—2010), Joan Retallack
, Erica Hunt, James Sherry, Jean Day
, Kit Robinson
, Ted Greenwald, Leslie Scalapino
(1944—2010), Diane Ward
, Rosmarie Waldrop
, and Hannah Weiner
(1928—1997). This list accurately reflects the high proportion of female poets across the spectrum of the Language writing movement. African-American poets associated with the movement include Hunt, Nathaniel Mackey
, and Harryette Mullen
.
certain groups of poets had followed William Carlos Williams
in his use of idiomatic American English rather than what they considered the 'heightened,' or overtly poetic language favored by the New Criticism
movement. In particular New York School
poets like Frank O'Hara
and The Black Mountain group
emphasized both speech and everyday language in their poetry and poetics. In contrast, some of the Language poets emphasized metonymy
, synecdoche
and extreme instances of paratactical
structures in their compositions, which, even when employing everyday speech, created a far different texture. The result is often alien and difficult to understand at first glance, which is what Language poetry intends: for the reader to participate in creating the meaning of the poem.
With reference to earlier poetry movements, it would be important to note that both Watten's & Grenier's magazine This
(and This Press that Watten edited) along with the magazine L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, published work by notable Black Mountain poets
such as Robert Creeley
and Larry Eigner
. Silliman considers Language poetry to be a continuation (albeit incorporating a critique) of the earlier movements. Watten has emphasized the discontinuity between the New American poets
, whose writing, he argues, privileged self-expression however mediated through language, and the Language poets, who tend to downplay expression and see the poem as a construction in and of language itself. In contrast, Bernstein has emphasized the expressive possibilities of working with constructed, and even found, language.
Gertrude Stein, particularly in her writing after Tender Buttons, and Louis Zukofsky, in his book-length poem "A," are the modernist poets most influential on the Language school. In the postwar period, John Cage
, Jackson Mac Low
, and poets of the New York School
(John Ashbery
, Frank O'Hara
, Ted Berrigan
) and Black Mountain School
(Robert Creeley
, Charles Olson
, and Robert Duncan
) are most recognizable as precursors to the Language poets. Many of these poets used procedural methods based on mathematical sequences and other logical organising devices to structure their poetry, and this practice proved highly useful to the language group. The application of process, especially at the level of the sentence
, was to become the basic tenet of language praxis. The influence of Stein came from the fact that she was a writer who had frequently used language divorced from reference in her own writings. The language poets also drew on the philosophical works of Ludwig Wittgenstein
, especially the concepts of language-game
s, meaning as use, and family resemblance
among different uses being the solution to the Problem of universals
.
, Creative Writing
and English Literature
departments in prominent universities (University of Pennsylvania
, SUNY Buffalo, Wayne State University
, University of California, Berkeley
, University of California, San Diego
, University of Maine
, the Iowa Writers' Workshop
).
Language poetry also developed affiliations with literary scenes outside the States, notably England, Canada (through the Kootenay school of writing in Vancouver), France
, the USSR, Brazil
, Finland
, Sweden
, New Zealand
, and Australia
. It had a particularly interesting relation to the UK avant-garde
: in the 1970s and 1980s there were extensive contacts between American language poets and veteran UK writers like Tom Raworth
and Allen Fisher
, or younger figures such as Caroline Bergvall
, Maggie O'Sullivan
, cris cheek
, and Ken Edwards
(whose magazine Reality Studios was instrumental in the transatlantic dialogue between American and UK avant-gardes). Other writers, such as J.H. Prynne and those associated with the so-called "Cambridge" poetry scene (Rod Mengham, Douglas Oliver
, Peter Riley
) were perhaps more skeptical about language poetry and its associated polemics and theoretical documents, though Geoff Ward
wrote a book about the phenomena.
A second-generation of poets influenced by the Language poets includes Eric Selland (also a noted translator of modern Japanese poetry), Lisa Robertson
, Juliana Spahr
, the Kootenay School poets, Conceptual Writing, Flarf collectives, and many others.
A significant number of women poets, and magazines and anthologies of innovative women's poetry, have been associated with language poetry on both sides of the Atlantic. They also represent an often distinct set of concerns. Among the poets are Leslie Scalapino
, Madeline Gins
, Susan Howe
, Lyn Hejinian
, Carla Harryman
, Rae Armantrout
, Johanna Drucker
, Abigail Child
, Karen Mac Cormack
; among the magazines HOW/ever, later the e-based journal HOW2; and among the anthologies Out of Everywhere: Linguistically Innovative Poetry by Women in North America & the UK, edited by Maggie O'Sullivan for Reality Street Editions in London (1996) and Mary Margaret Sloan's Moving Borders: Three Decades of Innovative Writing by Women (Jersey City: Talisman Publishers, 1998).
The Grand Piano describes itself as "an experiment in collective autobiography". It was begun over email by ten poets, each of whom was at one time involved with running the reading series at the Haight Street, San Francisco, coffee house by that name, who sought to reconnect their writing practices and to "recall and contextualize events from the period of the late 1970s." When completed, The Grand Piano, will comprise ten parts, in each of which the ten authors appear in a different sequence, often responding to prompts and problems arising in the series.
Some poets, such as Norman Finkelstein
, have stressed their own ambiguous relationship even after decades of fruitful engagement to "Language poetry". Finkelstein, in a discussion with Mark Scroggins in which they discuss The Grand Piano, points to a "risk" (if foregrounded) when previously marginalized poets attempt to write their own literary histories, "not the least of which is a self-regard bordering on narcissism".
Poetics
Aristotle's Poetics is the earliest-surviving work of dramatic theory and the first extant philosophical treatise to focus on literary theory...
, members of the Language school took as their starting point the emphasis on method evident in the modernist
Modernist poetry
Modernist poetry refers to poetry written between 1890 and 1950 in the tradition of modernist literature in the English language, but the dates of the term depend upon a number of factors, including the nation of origin, the particular school in question, and the biases of the critic setting the...
tradition, particularly as represented by Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein was an American writer, poet and art collector who spent most of her life in France.-Early life:...
and Louis Zukofsky
Louis Zukofsky
Louis Zukofsky was an American poet. He was one of the founders and the primary theorist of the Objectivist group of poets and thus an important influence on subsequent generations of poets in America and abroad.-Life:...
. Language poetry is also an example of poetic postmodernism
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
. Its immediate postmodern precursors were the New American poets
The New American Poetry 1945-1960
The New American Poetry 1945–1960 was a poetry anthology edited by Donald Allen, and published in 1960. It aimed to pick out the "third generation" of American modernist poets, and included quite a number of poems fresh from the little magazines of the late 1950s. In the longer term it attained a...
, a rubric which includes the New York School
New York School
The New York School was an informal group of American poets, painters, dancers, and musicians active in the 1950s, 1960s in New York City...
, the Objectivist poets
Objectivist poets
The Objectivist poets were a loose-knit group of second-generation Modernists who emerged in the 1930s. They were mainly American and were influenced by, amongst others, Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams...
, the Black Mountain School
Black Mountain poets
The Black Mountain poets, sometimes called projectivist poets, were a group of mid 20th century American avant-garde or postmodern poets centered on Black Mountain College.-Background:...
, the Beat
Beat generation
The Beat Generation refers to a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired...
poets, and the San Francisco Renaissance
San Francisco Renaissance
The term San Francisco Renaissance is used as a global designation for a range of poetic activity centered on San Francisco and which brought it to prominence as a hub of the American poetic avant-garde. However, others The term San Francisco Renaissance is used as a global designation for a range...
.
While there is no such thing as a "typical" Language poem, certain aspects of the writing of language poets became heavily identified with this group: writing
Writing
Writing is the representation of language in a textual medium through the use of a set of signs or symbols . It is distinguished from illustration, such as cave drawing and painting, and non-symbolic preservation of language via non-textual media, such as magnetic tape audio.Writing most likely...
that actively challenged the "natural
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
" presence
Present (time)
The present is the time that is associated with the events perceived directly and in the first time, not as a recollection or a speculation . It is a period of time between the past and the future, and can vary in meaning from being an instant to a day or longer...
of a speaker behind the text; writing that emphasized disjunction and the materiality
Substance theory
Substance theory, or substance attribute theory, is an ontological theory about objecthood, positing that a substance is distinct from its properties. A thing-in-itself is a property-bearer that must be distinguished from the properties it bears....
of the signifier
Sign (linguistics)
There are many models of the linguistic sign . A classic model is the one by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. According to him, language is made up of signs and every sign has two sides : the signifier , the "shape" of a word, its phonic component, i.e...
; and prose poetry
Prose poetry
Prose poetry is poetry written in prose instead of using verse but preserving poetic qualities such as heightened imagery and emotional effects.-Characteristics:Prose poetry can be considered either primarily poetry or prose, or a separate genre altogether...
, especially in longer forms than had previously been favored by English language writers, and other nontraditional and usually nonnarrative forms.
Language poetry has been a controversial topic
Controversy
Controversy is a state of prolonged public dispute or debate, usually concerning a matter of opinion. The word was coined from the Latin controversia, as a composite of controversus – "turned in an opposite direction," from contra – "against" – and vertere – to turn, or versus , hence, "to turn...
in American letters
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
from the 1970s to the present. Even the name
Name
A name is a word or term used for identification. Names can identify a class or category of things, or a single thing, either uniquely, or within a given context. A personal name identifies a specific unique and identifiable individual person, and may or may not include a middle name...
itself has been controversial: while a number of poets and critics have used the name of the journal to refer to the group, many others have chosen to use the term, when they used it at all, without the equals sign
Equals sign
The equality sign, equals sign, or "=" is a mathematical symbol used to indicate equality. It was invented in 1557 by Robert Recorde. The equals sign is placed between the things stated to have the same value, as in an equation...
s, while "language writing" and "language-centered writing" are also commonly used, and perhaps the most generic terms. None of the poets associated with the tendency have used the equal signs when referring to the writing collectively, and its appearance in some critical articles can be read as an index of the author's outsider status.
Online writing samples of many language poets can be found on internet sites, including blogs and sites maintained by authors and through gateways such as the Electronic Poetry Center
Electronic Poetry Center
The Electronic Poetry Center, sponsored by various departments at SUNY Buffalo, is an online resource for digital poetry. It was founded in 1995 by Loss Pequeño Glazier and Charles Bernstein, making it one of the oldest resources for poetry on the World Wide Web...
, PennSound
PennSound
PennSound is a poetry website and online archive that hosts free and downloadable recordings of poets reading their own work. The webiste offers over 1500 full-length and single-poem recordings, the largest collection of poetry sound-files on the internet, all of which are available free for...
, and UbuWeb
UbuWeb
UbuWeb is a large web-based educational resource for avant-garde material available on the internet, founded in 1996 by poet Kenneth Goldsmith. It offers visual, concrete and sound poetry, expanding to include film and sound art mp3 archives.-Philosophy:...
.
Early history of language poetry
There is more than one origin of this highly decentered movement. On the West Coast, an early seed of language poetry was the launch of ThisThis (magazine)
This is a poetry journal associated with what would later be called Language poetry because during the time span in which This was published, "many poets of the emerging Language school were represented in its pages"....
magazine, edited by Robert Grenier
Robert Grenier (poet)
Robert Grenier is a contemporary American poet associated with the Language School. He was founding co-editor of the influential magazine This...
and Watten, in 1971. Coming out of New York, L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E
L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E (magazine)
L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E was an avant garde poetry magazine edited by Charles Bernstein and Bruce Andrews that ran thirteen issues from 1978 to 1981...
, edited by Bruce Andrews
Bruce Andrews
Bruce Andrews is a U.S. poet who is one of the key figures associated with the Language poets .-Life and work:...
and Charles Bernstein
Charles Bernstein
Charles Bernstein is an American poet, theorist, editor, and literary scholar. Bernstein holds the Donald T. Regan Chair in the Department of English at the University of Pennsylvania. He is one of the most prominent members of the Language poets . In 2006 he was elected a Fellow of the American...
, ran from 1978 to 1982, and featured poetics, forums on writers in the movement, and themes such as "The Politics of Poetry" and "Reading Stein." Equally significant for the understanding of this movement of divergent, though interconnected, poetry practices that emerged in the 1970s was Ron Silliman
Ron Silliman
Ron Silliman is an American poet. He has written and edited over 30 books, and has had his poetry and criticism translated into 12 languages. He is often associated with language poetry. Between 1979 and 2004, Silliman wrote a single poem, The Alphabet...
's poetry newsletter Tottel's (1970–81), and Bruce Andrews
Bruce Andrews
Bruce Andrews is a U.S. poet who is one of the key figures associated with the Language poets .-Life and work:...
's selection in a special issue of Toopick (1973), as well as Lyn Hejinian
Lyn Hejinian
Lyn Hejinian is an American poet, essayist, translator and publisher. She is often associated with the Language poets and is well known for her landmark work My Life , as well as her book of essays, The Language of Inquiry .-Life:Hejinian was born in the San...
's editing of Tuumba Press and James Sherry's editing of ROOF magazine. The first significant collection of language-centered poetics was "The Politics of the Referent," edited by Steve McCaffery
Steve McCaffery
Steven McCaffery is a Canadian poet and scholar who was a professor at York University. He currently holds the Gray Chair at SUNY Buffalo . McCaffery was born in Sheffield, England and lived in the UK for most of his youth attending University of Hull. He moved to Toronto in 1968...
for the Toronto-based publication, Open Letter (1977).
In an essay from the first issue of This, Grenier declared: "I HATE SPEECH". Grenier's ironic statement (itself a speech act), was, in the context of the essay in which it occurred, along with a questioning attitude to the referentiality of language evidenced even in the magazine's title, later claimed by Ron Silliman, in the introduction to his anthology In the American Tree, as an epochal moment—a rallying cry for a number of young U.S. poets who were increasingly dissatisfied with the poetry of the Black Mountain poets
Black Mountain poets
The Black Mountain poets, sometimes called projectivist poets, were a group of mid 20th century American avant-garde or postmodern poets centered on Black Mountain College.-Background:...
and Beat
Beat generation
The Beat Generation refers to a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired...
poets.
"I HATE SPEECH" — Robert Grenier |
|
| Ron Silliman |
However, it was equally the range of contemporary poetries that focused on "language
Philosophy of language
Philosophy of language is the reasoned inquiry into the nature, origins, and usage of language. As a topic, the philosophy of language for analytic philosophers is concerned with four central problems: the nature of meaning, language use, language cognition, and the relationship between language...
" in This, Tottel's, L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, and also in several other key publications and essays of the time, rather than a single declarative sentence, that established the field of discussion that would emerge as Language (or L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E) poetry.
Indeed, during the 1970s, a number of magazines emerged who published poets who would become associated with the Language movement. Some other literary magazines associated with the movement in the 1970s and 1980s included A Hundred Posters (edited by Alan Davies
Alan Davies (poet)
Alan Davies , is a contemporary American poet, critic, and editor who has been writing and publishing since the 1970s. Today, he is most often associated with the Language poets.-Life and work:...
), Big Deal, Dog City, Hills, Là Bas, MIAM, Oculist Witnesses, QU, and Roof. Poetics Journal, which published writings in poetics and was edited by Lyn Hejinian
Lyn Hejinian
Lyn Hejinian is an American poet, essayist, translator and publisher. She is often associated with the Language poets and is well known for her landmark work My Life , as well as her book of essays, The Language of Inquiry .-Life:Hejinian was born in the San...
and Barrett Watten
Barrett Watten
Barrett Watten is an American poet, editor, and educator often associated with the Language poets.Since 1994, Watten has taught modernism and cultural studies at Wayne State University in Detroit...
, appeared from 1982 to 1998. Significant early gatherings of Language writing included Silliman's selection "The Dwelling Place: 9 Poets" in Alcheringa, (1975) Bruce Andrews's selection in Toopick, (1973) and Charles Bernstein's "A Language Sampler" in The Paris Review(1982)
Aside from magazines and presses, a number of poetry reading series, especially in New York, Washington, D.C. and San Francisco, were important venues for the performance of this new poetry and for the development of dialogue and collaboration among poets. Generally considered most important were the Ear Inn reading series in New York, founded in 1978 by Ted Greenwald and Charles Bernstein and later organized through James Sherry's Segue Foundation and curated by Mitch Highfill, Jeanne Lance, Andrew Levy, Rob Fitterman, Laynie Brown, Alan Davies, and others; Folio Books in Washington, D.C., founded by Doug Lang; and the Grand Piano reading series in San Francisco, which was curated by Barrett Watten
Barrett Watten
Barrett Watten is an American poet, editor, and educator often associated with the Language poets.Since 1994, Watten has taught modernism and cultural studies at Wayne State University in Detroit...
, Ron Silliman
Ron Silliman
Ron Silliman is an American poet. He has written and edited over 30 books, and has had his poetry and criticism translated into 12 languages. He is often associated with language poetry. Between 1979 and 2004, Silliman wrote a single poem, The Alphabet...
, Tom Mandel
Tom Mandel (poet)
Thomas Poeller Mandel is a contemporary American poet whose work is often associated with the Language poets.-Biography:...
, Rae Armantrout
Rae Armantrout
Rae Armantrout is an American poet generally associated with the Language Poets. Armantrout was born in Vallejo, California but grew up in San Diego. She has published ten books of poetry and has also been featured in a number of major anthologies...
, Ted Pearson
Ted Pearson
Ted Pearson is an American poet. He is often associated with the Language poets.-Life and work:Pearson was born in 1948 in Palo Alto, California...
, Carla Harryman
Carla Harryman
Carla Harryman is an American poet, essayist, and playwright often associated with the Language poets. She teaches Creative Writing at Eastern Michigan University and serves on the MFA faculty of the Milton Avery School of the Arts at Bard College...
, and Steve Benson
Steve Benson (poet)
Steve Benson is an American poet and performer. He is often associated with the Language poets. Benson lives in Downeast Maine where he is a licensed psychologist in private practice.-Life and work:...
at various times.
Poets, some of whom have been mentioned above, who were associated with the first wave of Language poetry include: Rae Armantrout
Rae Armantrout
Rae Armantrout is an American poet generally associated with the Language Poets. Armantrout was born in Vallejo, California but grew up in San Diego. She has published ten books of poetry and has also been featured in a number of major anthologies...
, Steve Benson
Steve Benson (poet)
Steve Benson is an American poet and performer. He is often associated with the Language poets. Benson lives in Downeast Maine where he is a licensed psychologist in private practice.-Life and work:...
, Abigail Child
Abigail Child
Abigail Child is a poet, director, producer, and writer of a number of films.Originally, Child worked in San Francisco but moved to New York later in her career.-Academics:...
, Clark Coolidge
Clark Coolidge
Clark Coolidge is an American poet born in Providence, Rhode Island.Often associated with the Language School, his experience as a Jazz drummer and interest in a wide array of subjects--- including caves, geology, bebop, weather, Salvador Dalí, Jack Kerouac, and movies--- often finds...
, Tina Darragh
Tina Darragh
Tina Darragh is an American poet who was one of the original members of the Language group of poets.Darragh was born in Pittsburgh and grew up in the south suburb of McDonald, Pennsylvania. She began writing in 1968 and studied poetry in Washington, DC at Trinity University from 1970 to 1972...
, Alan Davies
Alan Davies (poet)
Alan Davies , is a contemporary American poet, critic, and editor who has been writing and publishing since the 1970s. Today, he is most often associated with the Language poets.-Life and work:...
, Carla Harryman
Carla Harryman
Carla Harryman is an American poet, essayist, and playwright often associated with the Language poets. She teaches Creative Writing at Eastern Michigan University and serves on the MFA faculty of the Milton Avery School of the Arts at Bard College...
, P. Inman
P. Inman
Peter Inman is an American poet who was born in 1947 and raised on Long Island. He is a graduate of Georgetown University. Since 1980 he has worked at the Library of Congress, where he has been a union activist Peter Inman (writing as P. Inman) is an American poet who was born in 1947 and raised...
, Lynne Dryer, Madeline Gins
Madeline Gins
Madeline Gins is an American artist, architect, and poet.Madeline Gins met her partner, the artist Arakawa, in 1963. Together, they founded the Architectural Body Research Foundation. They have designed and built residences and parks...
, Michael Gottlieb
Michael Gottlieb
Michael Gottlieb may refer to:*Michael Gottlieb , American bridge player, Michael T.*Michael Gottlieb , flourished 1987–2005*Michael S. Gottlieb Michael Gottlieb may refer to:*Michael Gottlieb (bridge) (1902–1980), American bridge player, Michael T.*Michael Gottlieb (director), flourished...
, Fanny Howe
Fanny Howe
Fanny Howe is an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. She has written many novels in prose collection. Howe was awarded the 2009 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, presented annually by the Poetry Foundation to a living U.S...
, Susan Howe
Susan Howe
Susan Howe is a American poet, scholar, essayist and critic, who has been closely associated with the Language poets, among others poetry movements. Her work is often classified as Postmodern because it expands traditional notions of genre...
, Jackson Mac Low
Jackson Mac Low
Jackson Mac Low was an American poet, performance artist, composer and playwright, known to most readers of poetry as a practioneer of systematic chance operations and other non-intentional compositional methods in his work, which Mac Low first experienced in the musical work of John Cage, Earle...
(1922—2004), Tom Mandel
Tom Mandel (poet)
Thomas Poeller Mandel is a contemporary American poet whose work is often associated with the Language poets.-Biography:...
, Bernadette Mayer
Bernadette Mayer
Bernadette Mayer is a poet and prose writer. In 1967 she received a BA from New School for Social Research. She has since edited the journal 0 TO 9 with Vito Acconci and the United Artists Press with Lewis Warsh...
, Steve McCaffery
Steve McCaffery
Steven McCaffery is a Canadian poet and scholar who was a professor at York University. He currently holds the Gray Chair at SUNY Buffalo . McCaffery was born in Sheffield, England and lived in the UK for most of his youth attending University of Hull. He moved to Toronto in 1968...
, Michael Palmer
Michael Palmer
Michael Palmer is an American poet and translator. He attended Harvard University where he earned a BA in French and a MA in Comparative Literature. He has worked extensively with Contemporary dance for over thirty years and has collaborated with many composers and visual artists...
, Ted Pearson
Ted Pearson
Ted Pearson is an American poet. He is often associated with the Language poets.-Life and work:Pearson was born in 1948 in Palo Alto, California...
, Bob Perelman
Bob Perelman
Bob Perelman is an American poet, critic, editor and teacher. He is often associated with the Language School group of poets. Perelman is Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania.-Life and work:...
, Nick Piombino
Nick Piombino
Nick Piombino is an American poet, essayist, artist and psychotherapist. He has been associated with poets from both the New York School of the 1960s and the Language Poets of the 1970s, though his work is not easily classified...
, Peter Seaton
Peter Seaton
Peter Seaton was a U.S. poet associated with the first wave of Language poetry in the 1970s. During the opening and middle years of Language poetry many of his long prose poems were published, widely read and influential...
(1942—2010), Joan Retallack
Joan Retallack
Joan Retallack is an American poet, critic, biographer, and multi-disciplinary scholar.-Life and work:Joan Retallack received her B.A. from the University of Illinois, Urbana and her M.A. from Georgetown University...
, Erica Hunt, James Sherry, Jean Day
Jean Day
-Life and work:Born in Syracuse, New York, and raised in Middletown, Rhode Island, Day graduated from Antioch College in 1977. Since then she has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area and worked in literary publishing, currently as associate editor of...
, Kit Robinson
Kit Robinson
Kit Robinson is an American poet and translator. An early member of the San Francisco Language poets circle, he has published 20 books of poetry.-Life and work:...
, Ted Greenwald, Leslie Scalapino
Leslie Scalapino
Leslie Scalapino was a United States poet, experimental prose writer, playwright, essayist, and editor, sometimes grouped in with the Language poets, though she felt closely tied to the Beat poets. A longtime resident of California's Bay Area, she earned an M.A. in English from the University of...
(1944—2010), Diane Ward
Diane Ward
Diane Ward is a U.S. poet initially associated with the first wave of Language poetry in the 1970s and has actively published into the 21st century, maintaining a presence in various artistic communities for many decades...
, Rosmarie Waldrop
Rosmarie Waldrop
Rosmarie Waldrop is a contemporary American poet, translator and publisher. Born in Germany, she has lived in the United States since 1958. She has lived in Providence, Rhode Island since the late 1960s...
, and Hannah Weiner
Hannah Weiner
Hannah Adelle Weiner was an American poet who is often grouped with the Language poets because of the prominent place she assumed in the poetics of that group.- Early life and writings :...
(1928—1997). This list accurately reflects the high proportion of female poets across the spectrum of the Language writing movement. African-American poets associated with the movement include Hunt, Nathaniel Mackey
Nathaniel Mackey
Nathaniel Mackey is an American poet, novelist, anthologist, literary critic, editor and Professor of Literature at UC Santa Cruz. Mackey is a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets. Mackey is currently teaching a poetry workshop at Duke University....
, and Harryette Mullen
Harryette Mullen
Harryette Mullen is an American poet, short story writer, and literary scholar. She was born in Florence, Alabama, grew up in Fort Worth, Texas, graduated from the University of Texas at Austin and attended graduate school at the University of California, Santa Cruz. As of 2008, she lives in Los...
.
Poetics of language writing: theory and practice
Language poetry emphasizes the reader's role in bringing meaning out of a work and came about, at least in part, in response to the sometimes uncritical use of expressive lyric sentiment among earlier poetry movements to which the Language poets felt a kinship. In the 1950s and '60s1960s
The 1960s was the decade that started on January 1, 1960, and ended on December 31, 1969. It was the seventh decade of the 20th century.The 1960s term also refers to an era more often called The Sixties, denoting the complex of inter-related cultural and political trends across the globe...
certain groups of poets had followed William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine, having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania...
in his use of idiomatic American English rather than what they considered the 'heightened,' or overtly poetic language favored by the New Criticism
New Criticism
New Criticism was a movement in literary theory that dominated American literary criticism in the middle decades of the 20th century. It emphasized close reading, particularly of poetry, to discover how a work of literature functioned as a self-contained, self-referential aesthetic...
movement. In particular New York School
New York School
The New York School was an informal group of American poets, painters, dancers, and musicians active in the 1950s, 1960s in New York City...
poets like Frank O'Hara
Frank O'Hara
Francis Russell "Frank" O'Hara was an American writer, poet and art critic. He was a member of the New York School of poetry.-Life:...
and The Black Mountain group
Black Mountain poets
The Black Mountain poets, sometimes called projectivist poets, were a group of mid 20th century American avant-garde or postmodern poets centered on Black Mountain College.-Background:...
emphasized both speech and everyday language in their poetry and poetics. In contrast, some of the Language poets emphasized metonymy
Metonymy
Metonymy is a figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept...
, synecdoche
Synecdoche
Synecdoche , meaning "simultaneous understanding") is a figure of speech in which a term is used in one of the following ways:* Part of something is used to refer to the whole thing , or...
and extreme instances of paratactical
Parataxis
Parataxis is a literary technique, in writing or speaking, that favors short, simple sentences, with the use of coordinating rather than subordinating conjunctions...
structures in their compositions, which, even when employing everyday speech, created a far different texture. The result is often alien and difficult to understand at first glance, which is what Language poetry intends: for the reader to participate in creating the meaning of the poem.
With reference to earlier poetry movements, it would be important to note that both Watten's & Grenier's magazine This
This (magazine)
This is a poetry journal associated with what would later be called Language poetry because during the time span in which This was published, "many poets of the emerging Language school were represented in its pages"....
(and This Press that Watten edited) along with the magazine L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, published work by notable Black Mountain poets
Black Mountain poets
The Black Mountain poets, sometimes called projectivist poets, were a group of mid 20th century American avant-garde or postmodern poets centered on Black Mountain College.-Background:...
such as Robert Creeley
Robert Creeley
Robert Creeley was an American poet and author of more than sixty books. He is usually associated with the Black Mountain poets, though his verse aesthetic diverged from that school's. He was close with Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Allen Ginsberg, John Wieners and Ed Dorn. He served as the Samuel P...
and Larry Eigner
Larry Eigner
Laurence Joel Eigner / Larry Eigner was an American poet of the second half of the twentieth century and one of the principal figures of the Black Mountain School....
. Silliman considers Language poetry to be a continuation (albeit incorporating a critique) of the earlier movements. Watten has emphasized the discontinuity between the New American poets
The New American Poetry 1945-1960
The New American Poetry 1945–1960 was a poetry anthology edited by Donald Allen, and published in 1960. It aimed to pick out the "third generation" of American modernist poets, and included quite a number of poems fresh from the little magazines of the late 1950s. In the longer term it attained a...
, whose writing, he argues, privileged self-expression however mediated through language, and the Language poets, who tend to downplay expression and see the poem as a construction in and of language itself. In contrast, Bernstein has emphasized the expressive possibilities of working with constructed, and even found, language.
Gertrude Stein, particularly in her writing after Tender Buttons, and Louis Zukofsky, in his book-length poem "A," are the modernist poets most influential on the Language school. In the postwar period, John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
, Jackson Mac Low
Jackson Mac Low
Jackson Mac Low was an American poet, performance artist, composer and playwright, known to most readers of poetry as a practioneer of systematic chance operations and other non-intentional compositional methods in his work, which Mac Low first experienced in the musical work of John Cage, Earle...
, and poets of the New York School
New York School
The New York School was an informal group of American poets, painters, dancers, and musicians active in the 1950s, 1960s in New York City...
(John Ashbery
John Ashbery
John Lawrence Ashbery is an American poet. He has published more than twenty volumes of poetry and won nearly every major American award for poetry, including a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his collection Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. But Ashbery's work still proves controversial...
, Frank O'Hara
Frank O'Hara
Francis Russell "Frank" O'Hara was an American writer, poet and art critic. He was a member of the New York School of poetry.-Life:...
, Ted Berrigan
Ted Berrigan
-Early life:Berrigan was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on November 15, 1934. After high school, he spent a year at Providence College before joining the U.S. Army in 1954 to serve in the Korean War. After three years in the Army, he finished his college studies at the University of Tulsa in...
) and Black Mountain School
Black Mountain poets
The Black Mountain poets, sometimes called projectivist poets, were a group of mid 20th century American avant-garde or postmodern poets centered on Black Mountain College.-Background:...
(Robert Creeley
Robert Creeley
Robert Creeley was an American poet and author of more than sixty books. He is usually associated with the Black Mountain poets, though his verse aesthetic diverged from that school's. He was close with Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Allen Ginsberg, John Wieners and Ed Dorn. He served as the Samuel P...
, Charles Olson
Charles Olson
Charles Olson , was a second generation American modernist poet who was a link between earlier figures such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and the New American poets, which includes the New York School, the Black Mountain School, the Beat poets, and the San Francisco Renaissance...
, and Robert Duncan
Robert Duncan (poet)
Robert Duncan was an American poet and a student of H.D. and the Western esoteric tradition who spent most of his career in and around San Francisco. Though associated with any number of literary traditions and schools, Duncan is often identified with the poets of the New American Poetry and Black...
) are most recognizable as precursors to the Language poets. Many of these poets used procedural methods based on mathematical sequences and other logical organising devices to structure their poetry, and this practice proved highly useful to the language group. The application of process, especially at the level of the sentence
Sentence (linguistics)
In the field of linguistics, a sentence is an expression in natural language, and often defined to indicate a grammatical unit consisting of one or more words that generally bear minimal syntactic relation to the words that precede or follow it...
, was to become the basic tenet of language praxis. The influence of Stein came from the fact that she was a writer who had frequently used language divorced from reference in her own writings. The language poets also drew on the philosophical works of Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He was professor in philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1939 until 1947...
, especially the concepts of language-game
Language-game
A language-game is a philosophical concept developed by Ludwig Wittgenstein, referring to simple examples of language use and the actions into which the language is woven.- Description :...
s, meaning as use, and family resemblance
Family resemblance
Family resemblance is a philosophical idea made popular by Ludwig Wittgenstein, with the best known exposition being given in the posthumously published book Philosophical Investigations It has been suggested that Wittgenstein picked the idea and the term from Nietzsche, who had been using it,...
among different uses being the solution to the Problem of universals
Problem of universals
The problem of universals is an ancient problem in metaphysics about whether universals exist. Universals are general or abstract qualities, characteristics, properties, kinds or relations, such as being male/female, solid/liquid/gas or a certain colour, that can be predicated of individuals or...
.
Language poetry in the early 21st century
In many ways, what Language poetry is is still being determined. Most of the poets whose work falls within the bounds of the Language school are still alive and still active contributors. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Language poetry was widely received as a significant movement in innovative poetry in the U.S., a trend accentuated by the fact that some of its leading proponents took up academic posts in the PoeticsPoetics
Aristotle's Poetics is the earliest-surviving work of dramatic theory and the first extant philosophical treatise to focus on literary theory...
, Creative Writing
Creative writing
Creative writing is considered to be any writing, fiction, poetry, or non-fiction, that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, and technical forms of literature. Works which fall into this category include novels, epics, short stories, and poems...
and English Literature
English literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
departments in prominent universities (University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
, SUNY Buffalo, Wayne State University
Wayne State University
Wayne State University is a public research university located in Detroit, Michigan, United States, in the city's Midtown Cultural Center Historic District. Founded in 1868, WSU consists of 13 schools and colleges offering more than 400 major subject areas to over 32,000 graduate and...
, University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
, University of California, San Diego
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego, commonly known as UCSD or UC San Diego, is a public research university located in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, United States...
, University of Maine
University of Maine
The University of Maine is a public research university located in Orono, Maine, United States. The university was established in 1865 as a land grant college and is referred to as the flagship university of the University of Maine System...
, the Iowa Writers' Workshop
Iowa Writers' Workshop
The Program in Creative Writing, more commonly known as the Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa, is a highly regarded graduate-level creative writing program in the United States...
).
Language poetry also developed affiliations with literary scenes outside the States, notably England, Canada (through the Kootenay school of writing in Vancouver), France
French literature
French literature is, generally speaking, literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of France other than French. Literature written in French language, by citizens...
, the USSR, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, and Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. It had a particularly interesting relation to the UK avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
: in the 1970s and 1980s there were extensive contacts between American language poets and veteran UK writers like Tom Raworth
Tom Raworth
Tom Raworth is a London-born poet and visual artist who has published over forty books of poetry and prose since 1966. His works has been translated and published in many countries. Raworth is a key figure in the British Poetry Revival. He lives in Brighton, England.-Early life and work:Raworth...
and Allen Fisher
Allen Fisher
Allen Fisher is a poet, painter, publisher, teacher and performer associated with the British Poetry Revival.Fisher was born in London and started writing poetry in 1962. His early long project Place was published in a series of books and pamphlets in the 1970s. He worked on a project called...
, or younger figures such as Caroline Bergvall
Caroline Bergvall
Caroline Bergvall is a poet of French-Norwegian nationalities who has lived in England since 1989.Bergvall has developed audio texts and collaborative performances with sound artists in Europe and North America; her critical work is largely concerned with emerging forms of writing, plurilingual...
, Maggie O'Sullivan
Maggie O'Sullivan
Maggie O'Sullivan is a British poet, performer and visual artist associated with the British Poetry Revival.O'Sullivan was born in Lincoln, England of Irish immigrant parents. She moved to London in 1971 and worked for the BBC until 1988. Her early work appeared in magazines such as Angel Exhaust...
, cris cheek
Cris Cheek
Cris Cheek is a British poet, artist, interdisciplinary performer and academic currently resident at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Born in London in 1955, he lived and worked there until the early 1990s. One early influence was working alongside Bob Cobbing at the Poetry Society and the...
, and Ken Edwards
Ken Edwards
Ken Edwards is a poet, editor, writer and musician who has lived in England since 1968. He is associated with The British Poetry Revival....
(whose magazine Reality Studios was instrumental in the transatlantic dialogue between American and UK avant-gardes). Other writers, such as J.H. Prynne and those associated with the so-called "Cambridge" poetry scene (Rod Mengham, Douglas Oliver
Douglas Oliver
Douglas Dunlop Oliver was a poet, novelist, editor, and educator. The author of more than a dozen works, Oliver came into poetry not as an academic but through a career in journalism, notably in Cambridge, Paris, and Coventry, before attending the University of Essex in the 1970s. He received a...
, Peter Riley
Peter Riley
Peter Riley is a contemporary English poet, essayist, and editor. Riley is known as a Cambridge poet, part of the group vaguely associated with J. H. Prynne which today is acknowledged as an important epicenter of innovative poetry in the United Kingdom. Riley was an editor and major contributor...
) were perhaps more skeptical about language poetry and its associated polemics and theoretical documents, though Geoff Ward
Geoff Ward
Geoff Ward is a current assistant coach for the Boston Bruins of the National Hockey League. His name was engraved on the Stanley Cup with the Boston Bruins in 2011....
wrote a book about the phenomena.
A second-generation of poets influenced by the Language poets includes Eric Selland (also a noted translator of modern Japanese poetry), Lisa Robertson
Lisa Robertson (poet)
Lisa Robertson is a Canadian poet who is best known for a collection a poem entitled The Weather, which was inspired by the shipping forecasts announced on BBC radio. She currently lives in France.-Life:...
, Juliana Spahr
Juliana Spahr
Juliana Spahr is an American poet, critic, and editor. She is the recipient of the 2009 Hardison Poetry Prize awarded by the Folger Shakespeare Library to honor a U.S...
, the Kootenay School poets, Conceptual Writing, Flarf collectives, and many others.
A significant number of women poets, and magazines and anthologies of innovative women's poetry, have been associated with language poetry on both sides of the Atlantic. They also represent an often distinct set of concerns. Among the poets are Leslie Scalapino
Leslie Scalapino
Leslie Scalapino was a United States poet, experimental prose writer, playwright, essayist, and editor, sometimes grouped in with the Language poets, though she felt closely tied to the Beat poets. A longtime resident of California's Bay Area, she earned an M.A. in English from the University of...
, Madeline Gins
Madeline Gins
Madeline Gins is an American artist, architect, and poet.Madeline Gins met her partner, the artist Arakawa, in 1963. Together, they founded the Architectural Body Research Foundation. They have designed and built residences and parks...
, Susan Howe
Susan Howe
Susan Howe is a American poet, scholar, essayist and critic, who has been closely associated with the Language poets, among others poetry movements. Her work is often classified as Postmodern because it expands traditional notions of genre...
, Lyn Hejinian
Lyn Hejinian
Lyn Hejinian is an American poet, essayist, translator and publisher. She is often associated with the Language poets and is well known for her landmark work My Life , as well as her book of essays, The Language of Inquiry .-Life:Hejinian was born in the San...
, Carla Harryman
Carla Harryman
Carla Harryman is an American poet, essayist, and playwright often associated with the Language poets. She teaches Creative Writing at Eastern Michigan University and serves on the MFA faculty of the Milton Avery School of the Arts at Bard College...
, Rae Armantrout
Rae Armantrout
Rae Armantrout is an American poet generally associated with the Language Poets. Armantrout was born in Vallejo, California but grew up in San Diego. She has published ten books of poetry and has also been featured in a number of major anthologies...
, Johanna Drucker
Johanna Drucker
Johanna Drucker is an author, book artist, visual theorist, and cultural critic. Her scholarly writing documents and critiques visual language: letterforms, typography, visual poetry, art, and lately, digital aesthetics...
, Abigail Child
Abigail Child
Abigail Child is a poet, director, producer, and writer of a number of films.Originally, Child worked in San Francisco but moved to New York later in her career.-Academics:...
, Karen Mac Cormack
Karen Mac Cormack
Karen Mac Cormack is a contemporary experimental poet. She holds dual British/Canadian citizenship, and lived for many years in Toronto; more recently, she moved to Buffalo, New York, when her husband, the poet Steve McCaffery, was hired by SUNY-Buffalo for the David Gray Chair.Mac Cormack is the...
; among the magazines HOW/ever, later the e-based journal HOW2; and among the anthologies Out of Everywhere: Linguistically Innovative Poetry by Women in North America & the UK, edited by Maggie O'Sullivan for Reality Street Editions in London (1996) and Mary Margaret Sloan's Moving Borders: Three Decades of Innovative Writing by Women (Jersey City: Talisman Publishers, 1998).
The Grand Piano describes itself as "an experiment in collective autobiography". It was begun over email by ten poets, each of whom was at one time involved with running the reading series at the Haight Street, San Francisco, coffee house by that name, who sought to reconnect their writing practices and to "recall and contextualize events from the period of the late 1970s." When completed, The Grand Piano, will comprise ten parts, in each of which the ten authors appear in a different sequence, often responding to prompts and problems arising in the series.
Some poets, such as Norman Finkelstein
Norman Finkelstein (poet)
Norman Finkelstein is a poet and literary critic. He has written extensively about modern and postmodern poetry and about Jewish American literature. According to Tablet Magazine, Finkelstein's poetry "is simultaneously secular and religious, stately and conversational, prophetic, and...
, have stressed their own ambiguous relationship even after decades of fruitful engagement to "Language poetry". Finkelstein, in a discussion with Mark Scroggins in which they discuss The Grand Piano, points to a "risk" (if foregrounded) when previously marginalized poets attempt to write their own literary histories, "not the least of which is a self-regard bordering on narcissism".
Anthologies
- Allen, DonaldDonald AllenDonald Merriam Allen , influential editor, publisher, and translator of contemporary American literature. He is perhaps best known for his project The New American Poetry 1945-1960 , among the several important anthologies of contemporary American innovative writing he made available to the public...
, ed. The New American Poetry 1945-1960The New American Poetry 1945-1960The New American Poetry 1945–1960 was a poetry anthology edited by Donald Allen, and published in 1960. It aimed to pick out the "third generation" of American modernist poets, and included quite a number of poems fresh from the little magazines of the late 1950s. In the longer term it attained a...
. New York: Grove PressGrove PressGrove Press is an American publishing imprint that was founded in 1951. Imprints include: Black Cat, Evergreen, Venus Library, Zebra. Barney Rosset purchased the company in 1951 and turned it into an alternative book press in the United States. The Atlantic Monthly Press, under the aegis of its...
, 1960.
- Andrews, Bruce, and Charles Bernstein, eds. The "L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E" Book. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1984.
- Armantrout, Rae. Collected Prose. San Diego: Singing Horse, 2007.
- Bernstein, Charles, ed. The Politics of Poetic Form: Poetry and Public Policy. New York: Roof, 1990.
- Hoover, Paul, ed. Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton AnthologyPostmodern American PoetryPostmodern American Poetry is a 1994 poetry anthology edited by Paul Hoover; it is a Norton anthology published by W. W. Norton & Company. The introduction identifies the use of postmodern with its early mention by Charles Olson, and identifies the field chosen as experimental poetry from after 1945...
. New York: Norton, 1994.
- Messerli, Douglas, ed. Language Poetries. New York: New Directions, 1987.
- Silliman, Ron, ed. In the American Tree. Orono, Me.: National Poetry FoundationNational Poetry FoundationThe National Poetry Foundation is a book publisher founded in 1971 by Carroll F. Terrell who built its reputation with Burton Hatlen at the University of Maine in Orono. Today it publishes poetry by individual authors as well as both journals and scholarship devoted to Ezra Pound and poets in the...
, 1986; reprint ed. with a new afterword, 2002. An anthology of language poetry that serves as a very useful primer.
Books: Poetics and Criticism
- Huff, Jason. http://www.jason-huff.com/projects/autosummarize/ "AutoSummarize." Lulu Press, 2010.
- Andrews, Bruce. Paradise and Method. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1996.
- Bernstein, Charles. Content's Dream: Essays 1975-1984. Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 1985
- A Poetics. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992
- My Way; Speeches and Poems. University of Chicago Press, 1999
- Attack of the Difficult Poems: Essays and Inventions. University of Chicago Press, 2011
- Davies, Alan. Signage. New York: Roof Books, 1987.
- Friedlander, Ben. Simulcast: Four Experiments in Criticism. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2004.
- Hartley, George. Textual Politics and the Language Poets. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989.
- Hejinian, Lyn. The Language of Inquiry. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.
- Howe, Susan. My Emily Dickinson. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 1988. Rpt, New Directions, 2007.
- The Birth-Mark: Unsettling the Wilderness in American Literary History. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1993.
- Huk, Romana, ed. Assembling Alternatives: Reading Postmodern Poetries Transnationally. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 2003.
- McCaffery, Steve. North of Intention: Critical Writings 1973-1986. New York: Roof Books, 1986.
- Prior to Meaning: The Protosemantic and Poetics. Evanston: Northwestern UP, 2001.
- Perelman, Bob. The Marginalization of Poetry: Language Writing and Literary History. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996.
- Piombino, Nick. Boundary of Blur. New York: Roof Books, 1993
- Theoretical Objects. Green Integer Press, 1999.
- Ratcliffe, StephenStephen RatcliffeStephen Ratcliffe is a contemporary U.S. poet and critic who has published numerous books of poetry and three books of criticism. He lives in Bolinas, CA and is the publisher of Avenue B Press...
. Listening to Reading. Abany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2000
- Reinfeld, Linda. Language Poetry: Writing as Rescue. Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 1992.
- Silliman, Ron. The New Sentence. New York: Roof Books, 1987. An early collection of talks and essays that situates language poetry into contemporary political thought, linguistics, and literary tradition. See esp. section II.
- Scalapino, Leslie. How Phenomena Appear to Unfold. Elmwood: Potes & Poets, 1989.
- Objects in the Terrifying Tense / Longing from Taking Place. Roof Books, 1994.
- The Public World / Syntactically Impermanence. Wesleyan University Press, 1999.
- How Phenomena Appear to Unfold. Litmus Press, 2011.
- Seaton, Peter. Crisis Intervention. Berkeley, California: Tuumba Press, 1983.
- The Son Master. New York: Roof Books, 1982.
- Agreement. New York: Asylum's Press, 1978
- Vickery, Ann. Leaving Lines of Gender: A Feminist Genealogy of Language Writing. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 2000.
- Ward, Geoff. Language Poetry and the American Avant-Garde. Keele: British Association for American Studies, 1993.
- Watten, Barrett. The Constructivist Moment: From Material Text to Cultural Poetics. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 2003. See esp. chaps. 2 and 3.
- Total Syntax. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1984.
Books: Cross-genre & Cultural writing
- Armantrout, Rae. True. Berkeley, CA: Atelos | (Small Press Distribution), 1998. ISBN 978-1-891190-03-2
- Davies, Alan. Candor. Berkeley, CA, 1990.
- Perelman, Bob, et al.. The Grand Piano: An Experiment in Collective Autobiography. Detroit, MI: Mode A/This Press, 2006. ISBN 978-0-9790198-0-X - this work is described as an ongoing experiment in collective autobiography by ten writers identified with Language poetry in San Francisco. The project will consist of 10 volumes in all.
- Piombino, Nick. Fait Accompli. Queens, NY: Factory School, 2006.
- Scalapino, Leslie. Zither & Autobiography. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan, 2003.
- Silliman, Ron. Under Albany. Cambridge, UK: Salt PublishingSalt PublishingSalt Publishing is an independent publisher whose origins date back to 1990 when poet John Kinsella launched Salt Magazine in Western Australia. The journal rapidly developed an international reputation as a leading publisher of new poetry and poetics...
, 2004. ISBN 978-1844710515
- Watten, Barrett. Bad History. Berkeley, CA: Atelos | Small Press Distribution , 1998. ISBN 978-1-891190-02-5
Articles
- Michael Greer, "Ideology and Theory in Recent Experimental Writing or, the Naming of "Language Poetry," boundary 2, Vol. 16, No. 2/3 (Winter - Spring, 1989), pp. 335–355
- Perloff, MarjorieMarjorie PerloffMarjorie Perloff is an Austrian-born U.S. poetry critic.Perloff was born Gabriele Mintz into a secularized Jewish family in Vienna. Faced with Nazi terror, her family emigrated in 1938 when she was six-and-a-half, going first to Zürich and then to the United States, settling in Riverdale, New York...
. "The Word as Such: LANGUAGE: Poetry in the Eighties." American Poetry Review (May–June 1984), 13(3):15-22. - Bartlett, Lee, "What is 'Language Poetry'?" Critical Inquiry 12 (1986): 741-752. Available through JStor.
External links
- On First Looking into Wikipedia's "Language" by Barrett Watten
- 'Meaning, Unmeaning and the Poetics of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E' -- an article by Suman Chakraborty
- Electronic Poetry Center
- L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Magazine online archive
- Bruce Andrews-edited issue of Toothpick
- The Dwelling Place: 9 Poets Ron Silliman-edited issue of Alcheringa
- Index for full run of This magazine
- THE POETICS OF L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E by Bruce Andrews
- In the Un-American Tree( The L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Poetries and Their Aftermath, with a Special Reference to Charles Bernstein Translated ). This piece by Leevi Lehto was presented as one of the Keynote Addresses at the opening session of International Conference on 20th Century American Poetry, hosted by Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China, July 21, 2007
- Silliman's Blog: A weblog focused on contemporary poetry and poetics
- Charles Bernstein author page and web log
- New Poetics Colloquium proceedings (1985)
- Bleed-Over and Decadence, or: No Bones About It, They're Talking About Language Poetry by poet Robert ArchambeauRobert ArchambeauFor the poet and critic, see Robert Archambeau Robert Archambeau is a Canadian ceramic artist. Born in Toledo, Ohio, United States in 1933, he immigrated to Canada in 1968. His work, heavily influenced by Japanese ceramics, has been exhibited internationally and is held in many major public and...
which first appeared on his blog. - The Grand Piano website devoted to the 10 volumes of "Collective Autobiography" by 10 of the so-called "West Coast" group of Language poets.
- Geoff Ward, Language Poetry and the American Avant-Garde (1993)
- Andrew Epstein, "Verse vs. Verse: The Language Poets are taking over the academy. But will success spoil their integrity?" (Lingua Franca, Sept. 2000: 45-54
- Jerome McGann, "Contemporary Poetry, Alternate Routes" a piece by Jerome McGannJerome McGannJerome McGann is a textual scholar whose work focuses on the history of literature and culture from the late eighteenth-century to the present.-Career:Educated at Le Moyne College , Syracuse University Jerome McGann (born July 22, 1937) is a textual scholar whose work focuses on the history of...
- "This L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E" by Kate Lilley essay by Kate LilleyKate Lilley-Early life:Kate Lilley was born in Perth, Western Australia and moved to Sydney with her family. She is the daughter of writers Dorothy Hewett and Merv Lilley....
@ Jacket Magazine site - Language Poetry: Dissident Practices and the Makings of a Movement links to 7 articles by Eleana Kim & an extensive bibliography of articles & books relating to Language writing