Customer Reviews

A Poetics

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Responding to what the previous poster wrote: The first chapter in the book, "Artifice as Absorption" is a captivating and provocative essay on what makes so-called "difficult" literature valuable. As if to prove his point about how "anti-absorptive" works (such as the writing of Beckett, Gertrude Stein, LANGUAGE poets like Bernstein) are sometimes more engaging than your typical potboiler, Bernstein has produced an unlikely page-turner here. Among the chapter's "artificial" effects: it's written in verse, and it has footnotes. And one warning: it probably will be difficult to decipher if you're not somewhat conversant with literary theory. But if you're interested in literature, especially poetry, Bernstein's is an invaluable take on some of the debates currently raging over what makes verse, especially difficult or avant-garde verse, worth worrying over. I particularly like his point that "common-voice" poetry (like Gary Snyder's or Robert Bly's), though the accepted model for "honest" poetry, is really doubly artificial, because it's hiding its artifice behind a masquerade of plainspokenness.

Full disclousre: I'm a grad student and a poet (though not as avant- as Bernstein) and I really loved this essay. I'm still working through the rest of the book, which I checked out from the library.

READ THE FIRST ESSAY IN THIS BOOK REPEAT