HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Language poets (or ''L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E'' poets, after the magazine of that name) are an
avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
group or tendency in
United States poetry American poetry refers to the poetry of the United States. It arose first as efforts by American colonists to add their voices to English poetry in the 17th century, well before the constitutional unification of the Thirteen Colonies (although ...
that emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The poets included:
Bernadette Mayer Bernadette Mayer (May 12, 1945 – November 22, 2022) was an American poet, writer, and visual artist associated with both the Language poets and the New York School. Early life and education Bernadette Mayer was born in a predominantly Ge ...
,
Leslie Scalapino Leslie Scalapino (July 25, 1944 – May 28, 2010) was an American poet, experimental prose writer, playwright, essayist, and editor, sometimes grouped in with the Language poets, though she felt closely tied to the Beat poets. Writes Hejinian: ...
,
Stephen Rodefer Stephen Rodefer (November 20, 1940 – August 22, 2015) was an American poet and painter who lived in Paris and London. Born in Bellaire, Ohio, he knew many of the early beat and Black Mountain poets, including Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Ch ...
,
Bruce Andrews Bruce Andrews (April 1, 1948) is an American poet who is one of the key figures associated with the Language poets (or '' L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E'' ''poets'', after the magazine that bears that name). Life and work Andrews was born in Chicago and studied ...
,
Charles Bernstein Charles Bernstein may refer to: * Charles Bernstein (composer) (born 1943), American composer of film and television scores * Charles Bernstein (poet) Charles Bernstein (born April 4, 1950) is an American poet, essayist, editor, and literary sc ...
,
Ron Silliman Ron Silliman (born August 5, 1946) 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 wr ...
,
Barrett Watten Barrett Watten (born October 3, 1948) is an American poet, editor, and educator often associated with the Language poets. He is a professor of English at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan where he has taught modernism and cultural studies ...
,
Lyn Hejinian Lyn Hejinian (born May 17, 1941) is an American poet, essayist, translator and publisher. She is often associated with the Language poets and is known for her landmark work ''My Life'' (Sun & Moon, 1987, original version Burning Deck, 1980), a ...
, Tom Mandel,
Bob Perelman Bob Perelman (born December 2, 1947) is an American poet, critic, editor, and teacher. He was an early exponent of the Language poets, an avant-garde movement, originating in the 1970s. He has helped shape a "formally adventurous, politically e ...
,
Rae Armantrout Rae Armantrout (born April 13, 1947) is an American poet generally associated with the Language poets. She has published ten books of poetry and has also been featured in a number of major anthologies. Armantrout currently teaches at the Univers ...
,
Alan Davies Alan Roger Davies (; born 6 March 1966) is an English stand-up comedian, writer, actor and TV presenter. He is best known for his portrayal of the title role in the BBC mystery drama series ''Jonathan Creek'' (1997–2016) and as the only perm ...
,
Carla Harryman Carla Harryman (born January 11, 1952) 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 t ...
,
Clark Coolidge Clark Coolidge (born February 26, 1939) is an American poet. Background As a teenager, Coolidge attended Classical High School in Providence, Rhode Island. Coolidge attended Brown University, where his father taught in the music department. After ...
,
Hannah Weiner Hannah Adelle Weiner (née Finegold) (November 4, 1928 – September 11, 1997) 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 writing ...
,
Susan Howe Susan Howe (born June 10, 1937) is an American poet, scholar, essayist, and critic, who has been closely associated with the Language poets, among other poetry movements.
,
James Sherry James Sherry (born 14 November 1967) is an Australian television presenter, actor, and producer. Career Sherry has hosted several children's shows, including ''Saturday Disney'' (1990 to 1994) and '' A*mazing'' (1994 to 1998). He has had gues ...
, and
Tina Darragh Tina Darragh (born 1950) is an American poet who was one of the original members of the Language group of poets. Biography Darragh was born in Pittsburgh and grew up in the south suburb of McDonald, Pennsylvania. She began writing in 1968 and st ...
. Language poetry emphasizes the reader's role in bringing meaning out of a work. It plays down expression, seeing the poem as a construction in and of language itself. In more theoretical terms, it challenges the "
natural Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are p ...
" presence of a speaker behind the text; and emphasizes the
disjunction In logic, disjunction is a logical connective typically notated as \lor and read aloud as "or". For instance, the English language sentence "it is raining or it is snowing" can be represented in logic using the disjunctive formula R \lor S ...
and the materiality of the
signifier In semiotics, signified and signifier ( French: ''signifié'' and ''signifiant'') stand for the two main components of a sign, where ''signified'' pertains to the "plane of content", while ''signifier'' is the "plane of expression". The idea was ...
.Saroj Koirala (2016),
Linking Words with the World: The Language Poetry Mission
, ''Tribhuvan University Journal'', vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 175-190; here: p. 179. . Retrieved 2020-04-11.
These poets favor
prose poetry Prose poetry is poetry written in prose form instead of verse form, while preserving poetic qualities such as heightened imagery, parataxis, and emotional effects. Characteristics Prose poetry is written as prose, without the line breaks associ ...
, especially in longer and non-
narrative A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travel literature, travelogue, etc.) or fictional (fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller (ge ...
forms. In developing their
poetics Poetics is the theory of structure, form, and discourse within literature, and, in particular, within poetry. History The term ''poetics'' derives from the Ancient Greek ποιητικός ''poietikos'' "pertaining to poetry"; also "creative" an ...
, members of the Language school took as their starting point the emphasis on method evident in the
modernist Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...
tradition, particularly as represented by
Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the Allegheny West neighborhood and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris ...
,
William Carlos Williams William Carlos Williams (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963) was an American poet, writer, and physician closely associated with modernism and imagism. In addition to his writing, Williams had a long career as a physician practicing both pedia ...
, and
Louis Zukofsky Louis Zukofsky (January 23, 1904 – May 12, 1978) was an American poet. He was the primary instigator and theorist of the so-called "Objectivist" poets, a short lived collective of poets who after several decades of obscurity would reemerge a ...
. Language poetry is an example of poetic
postmodernism Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or Rhetorical modes, mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by philosophical skepticism, skepticis ...
. Its immediate postmodern precursors were the New American poets, a term including the New York School, the
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, among others, Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams. The basic tenets of objectivist poeti ...
, the
Black Mountain School Black Mountain College was a private liberal arts college in Black Mountain, North Carolina. It was founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice, Theodore Dreier, and several others. The college was ideologically organized around John Dewey's educati ...
, the
Beat Beat, beats or beating may refer to: Common uses * Patrol, or beat, a group of personnel assigned to monitor a specific area ** Beat (police), the territory that a police officer patrols ** Gay beat, an area frequented by gay men * Battery ( ...
poets, and the
San Francisco Renaissance The term San Francisco Renaissance is used as a global designation for a range of poetic activity centered on San Francisco, which brought it to prominence as a hub of the American poetry avant-garde in the 1950s. However, others (e.g., Alan Watts ...
. Language poetry has been a controversial topic in American
letters Letter, letters, or literature may refer to: Characters typeface * Letter (alphabet), a character representing one or more of the sounds used in speech; any of the symbols of an alphabet. * Letterform, the graphic form of a letter of the alphabe ...
from the 1970s to the present. Even the name 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 The equals sign (British English, Unicode) or equal sign (American English), also known as the equality sign, is the mathematical symbol , which is used to indicate equality in some well-defined sense. In an equation, it is placed between two ...
s. The terms "language writing" and "language-centered writing" are also commonly used, and are perhaps the most generic terms. None of the poets associated with the tendency has used the equal signs when referring to the writing collectively. Its use in some critical articles can be taken as an indicator of the author's outsider status. There is also debate about whether or not a writer can be called a language poet without being part of that specific coterie; is it a style or is it a group of people? 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 The Electronic Poetry Center (EPC), is an online resource for digital poetry. It was founded on July 10, 1994 by Loss Pequeño Glazier and Charles Bernstein, of the Poetics Program at SUNY-Buffalo, making it one of the oldest resources for poetry ...
,
PennSound PennSound is a poetry website and online archive that hosts free and downloadable recordings of poets reading their own work. The website offers over 1500 full-length and single-poem recordings, the largest collection of poetry sound-files on the ...
, and
UbuWeb UbuWeb is a 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. Philosop ...
.


History

The movement has been highly decentralized. On the West Coast, an early seed of language poetry was the launch of ''
This This may refer to: * ''This'', the singular proximal demonstrative pronoun Places * This, or ''Thinis'', an ancient city in Upper Egypt * This, Ardennes, a commune in France People with the surname * Hervé This, French culinary chemist Arts, e ...
'' magazine, edited by Robert Grenier and
Barrett Watten Barrett Watten (born October 3, 1948) is an American poet, editor, and educator often associated with the Language poets. He is a professor of English at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan where he has taught modernism and cultural studies ...
, in 1971. ''
L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E The Language poets (or L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E (magazine), ''L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E'' poets, after the magazine of that name) are an avant-garde group or tendency in United States poetry that emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The poets included: Berna ...
'', edited by
Bruce Andrews Bruce Andrews (April 1, 1948) is an American poet who is one of the key figures associated with the Language poets (or '' L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E'' ''poets'', after the magazine that bears that name). Life and work Andrews was born in Chicago and studied ...
and
Charles Bernstein Charles Bernstein may refer to: * Charles Bernstein (composer) (born 1943), American composer of film and television scores * Charles Bernstein (poet) Charles Bernstein (born April 4, 1950) is an American poet, essayist, editor, and literary sc ...
, ran from 1978 to 1982, and was published in New York. It featured poetics, forums on writers in the movement, and themes such as "The Politics of Poetry" and "Reading Stein".
Ron Silliman Ron Silliman (born August 5, 1946) 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 wr ...
's poetry newsletter ''Tottel's'' (1970–81),
Bruce Andrews Bruce Andrews (April 1, 1948) is an American poet who is one of the key figures associated with the Language poets (or '' L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E'' ''poets'', after the magazine that bears that name). Life and work Andrews was born in Chicago and studied ...
's selections in a special issue of ''Toothpick'' (1973), as well as
Lyn Hejinian Lyn Hejinian (born May 17, 1941) is an American poet, essayist, translator and publisher. She is often associated with the Language poets and is known for her landmark work ''My Life'' (Sun & Moon, 1987, original version Burning Deck, 1980), a ...
's editing of Tuumba Press, and
James Sherry James Sherry (born 14 November 1967) is an Australian television presenter, actor, and producer. Career Sherry has hosted several children's shows, including ''Saturday Disney'' (1990 to 1994) and '' A*mazing'' (1994 to 1998). He has had gues ...
's editing of ''Roof'' magazine also contributed to the development of ideas in language poetry. The first significant collection of language-centered poetics was the article, "The Politics of the Referent," edited by
Steve McCaffery Steven McCaffery (born January 24, 1947) is a Canadian poet and scholar who was a professor at York University. He currently holds the David Gray Chair at the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York. McCaffery was born in Sheffie ...
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), and a questioning attitude to the referentiality of language, became central to language poets. Ron Silliman, in the introduction to his anthology ''In the American Tree,'' appealed to a number of young U.S. poets who were dissatisfied with the work of the Black Mountain and
Beat Beat, beats or beating may refer to: Common uses * Patrol, or beat, a group of personnel assigned to monitor a specific area ** Beat (police), the territory that a police officer patrols ** Gay beat, an area frequented by gay men * Battery ( ...
poets. The range of poetry published that focused on "
language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
" in ''This,'' ''Tottel's,'' ''L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E'', and also in several other key publications and essays of the time, established the field of discussion that would emerge as Language (or L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E) poetry. During the 1970s, a number of magazines published poets who would become associated with the Language movement. These included ''A Hundred Posters'' (edited by
Alan Davies Alan Roger Davies (; born 6 March 1966) is an English stand-up comedian, writer, actor and TV presenter. He is best known for his portrayal of the title role in the BBC mystery drama series ''Jonathan Creek'' (1997–2016) and as the only perm ...
), ''Big Deal,'' ''Dog City,'' ''Hills,'' ''Là Bas,'' ''MIAM,'' ''Oculist Witnesses,'' ''QU,'' and ''Roof.'' ''
Poetics Journal Poetics is the theory of structure, form, and discourse within literature, and, in particular, within poetry. History The term ''poetics'' derives from the Ancient Greek ποιητικός ''poietikos'' "pertaining to poetry"; also "creative" an ...
,'' which published writings in poetics and was edited by
Lyn Hejinian Lyn Hejinian (born May 17, 1941) is an American poet, essayist, translator and publisher. She is often associated with the Language poets and is known for her landmark work ''My Life'' (Sun & Moon, 1987, original version Burning Deck, 1980), a ...
and
Barrett Watten Barrett Watten (born October 3, 1948) is an American poet, editor, and educator often associated with the Language poets. He is a professor of English at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan where he has taught modernism and cultural studies ...
, appeared from 1982 to 1998. Significant early gatherings of Language writing included Bruce Andrews's selection in ''Toothpick'' (1973); Silliman's selection "The Dwelling Place: 9 Poets" in ''Alcheringa,'' (1975), and Charles Bernstein's "A Language Sampler," in ''The Paris Review'' (1982). Certain poetry reading series, especially in New York, Washington, D.C. and San Francisco, were important venues for the performance of this new work, and for the development of dialogue and collaboration among poets. Most important were Ear Inn reading series in New York, founded in 1978 by Ted Greenwald and Charles Bernstein and later organized through
James Sherry James Sherry (born 14 November 1967) is an Australian television presenter, actor, and producer. Career Sherry has hosted several children's shows, including ''Saturday Disney'' (1990 to 1994) and '' A*mazing'' (1994 to 1998). He has had gues ...
's Segue Foundation and curated by Mitch Highfill, Jeanne Lance, Andrew Levy, Rob Fitterman, Laynie Brown, Alan Davies, and The Poetry Society of New York; 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 (born October 3, 1948) is an American poet, editor, and educator often associated with the Language poets. He is a professor of English at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan where he has taught modernism and cultural studies ...
,
Ron Silliman Ron Silliman (born August 5, 1946) 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 wr ...
, Tom Mandel,
Rae Armantrout Rae Armantrout (born April 13, 1947) is an American poet generally associated with the Language poets. She has published ten books of poetry and has also been featured in a number of major anthologies. Armantrout currently teaches at the Univers ...
,
Ted Pearson Ted Pearson (born 1948 in Palo Alto, California) is an American poet. He is often associated with the Language poets. Life and work Pearson was born in 1948 in Palo Alto, California. He began studying liturgical music in 1960, instrumental music ...
,
Carla Harryman Carla Harryman (born January 11, 1952) 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 t ...
, 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 Rae Armantrout (born April 13, 1947) is an American poet generally associated with the Language poets. She has published ten books of poetry and has also been featured in a number of major anthologies. Armantrout currently teaches at the Univers ...
,
Stephen Rodefer Stephen Rodefer (November 20, 1940 – August 22, 2015) was an American poet and painter who lived in Paris and London. Born in Bellaire, Ohio, he knew many of the early beat and Black Mountain poets, including Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Ch ...
(1940–2015), Steve Benson,
Abigail Child Abigail Child is a filmmaker, poet, and writer who has been active in experimental writing and media since the 1970s. She has completed more than thirty film and video works and installations, and six books. Child's early film work addressed the in ...
,
Clark Coolidge Clark Coolidge (born February 26, 1939) is an American poet. Background As a teenager, Coolidge attended Classical High School in Providence, Rhode Island. Coolidge attended Brown University, where his father taught in the music department. After ...
,
Tina Darragh Tina Darragh (born 1950) is an American poet who was one of the original members of the Language group of poets. Biography Darragh was born in Pittsburgh and grew up in the south suburb of McDonald, Pennsylvania. She began writing in 1968 and st ...
,
Alan Davies Alan Roger Davies (; born 6 March 1966) is an English stand-up comedian, writer, actor and TV presenter. He is best known for his portrayal of the title role in the BBC mystery drama series ''Jonathan Creek'' (1997–2016) and as the only perm ...
,
Carla Harryman Carla Harryman (born January 11, 1952) 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 t ...
, P. Inman, Lynne Dryer,
Madeline Gins Madeline Helen Arakawa Gins (November 7, 1941 – January 8, 2014) was an American artist, architect, and poet. Early life and education Gins was born in New York City, November 7, 1941, and raised on Long Island, in the village of Island Park. ...
, Michael Gottlieb,
Fanny Howe Fanny Howe (born October 15, 1940 in Buffalo, New York) is an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. Howe has written more than 20 books of poetry and prose. Her major works include poetry such as ''One Crossed Out'', ''Gone'', and ''S ...
,
Susan Howe Susan Howe (born June 10, 1937) is an American poet, scholar, essayist, and critic, who has been closely associated with the Language poets, among other poetry movements.
,
Tymoteusz Karpowicz Tymoteusz Karpowicz (15 December 1921 in Zielona near Vilnius – 29 June 2005 in Oak Park near Chicago) was a leading Polish language poet and playwright. Biography Born in the village of Zielona, near Vilnius, Karpowicz lived there until t ...
,
Jackson Mac Low Jackson Mac Low (1922–2004) 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, whi ...
(1922–2004), Tom Mandel,
Bernadette Mayer Bernadette Mayer (May 12, 1945 – November 22, 2022) was an American poet, writer, and visual artist associated with both the Language poets and the New York School. Early life and education Bernadette Mayer was born in a predominantly Ge ...
,
Steve McCaffery Steven McCaffery (born January 24, 1947) is a Canadian poet and scholar who was a professor at York University. He currently holds the David Gray Chair at the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York. McCaffery was born in Sheffie ...
, Michael Palmer,
Ted Pearson Ted Pearson (born 1948 in Palo Alto, California) is an American poet. He is often associated with the Language poets. Life and work Pearson was born in 1948 in Palo Alto, California. He began studying liturgical music in 1960, instrumental music ...
,
Bob Perelman Bob Perelman (born December 2, 1947) is an American poet, critic, editor, and teacher. He was an early exponent of the Language poets, an avant-garde movement, originating in the 1970s. He has helped shape a "formally adventurous, politically e ...
, Nick Piombino,
Peter Seaton Peter Seaton (December 16, 1942 – May 18, 2010) was an American 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 re ...
(1942–2010),
Joan Retallack Joan Retallack (born October 13, 1941) is an American poet, critic, biographer, and multi-disciplinary scholar. She is the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of Humanities at Bard College where she teaches courses in poetics, poethic ...
,
Erica Hunt Erica Hunt (born March 12, 1955) is a U.S. poet, essayist, teacher, mother, and organizer from New York City. She is often associated with the group of Language poets from her days living in San Francisco in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but he ...
,
James Sherry James Sherry (born 14 November 1967) is an Australian television presenter, actor, and producer. Career Sherry has hosted several children's shows, including ''Saturday Disney'' (1990 to 1994) and '' A*mazing'' (1994 to 1998). He has had gues ...
, Jean Day,
Kit Robinson Kit Robinson (born May 17, 1949) is an American poet, translator, writer and musician. An early member of the San Francisco Language poets circle, he has published 28 books of poetry. Life and work Born in Evanston, Illinois, Robinson graduated ...
,
Ted Greenwald TED may refer to: Economics and finance * TED spread between U.S. Treasuries and Eurodollar Education * ''Türk Eğitim Derneği'', the Turkish Education Association ** TED Ankara College Foundation Schools, Turkey ** Transvaal Education Depa ...
,
Leslie Scalapino Leslie Scalapino (July 25, 1944 – May 28, 2010) was an American poet, experimental prose writer, playwright, essayist, and editor, sometimes grouped in with the Language poets, though she felt closely tied to the Beat poets. Writes Hejinian: ...
(1944–2010),
Diane Ward Diane Ward (born November 9, 1956) 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 (born Rosmarie Sebald; August 24, 1935) is an American poet, novelist, translator, essayist and publisher. Born in Germany, she has lived in the United States since 1958 and has settled in Providence, Rhode Island since the late ...
, and
Hannah Weiner Hannah Adelle Weiner (née Finegold) (November 4, 1928 – September 11, 1997) 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 writing ...
(1928–1997). This list accurately reflects the high proportion of female poets across the spectrum of the Language writing movement.
African-American poets African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...
associated with the movement include Hunt,
Nathaniel Mackey Nathaniel Mackey is an American poet, novelist, anthologist, literary critic and editor. He is the Reynolds Price Professor of Creative Writing at Duke University and a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets. Mackey is currently teaching a p ...
, and
Harryette Mullen Harryette Mullen (born July 1, 1953), Professor of English at University of California, Los Angeles, is an American poet, short story writer, and literary scholar. Life Mullen was born in Florence, Alabama, grew up in Fort Worth, Texas, gradua ...
.


Poetics of language writing: theory and practice

Language poetry emphasizes the reader's role in bringing meaning out of a work. It developed in part in response to what poets considered the uncritical use of expressive lyric sentiment among earlier poetry movements. In the 1950s and 1960s, certain groups of poets had followed
William Carlos Williams William Carlos Williams (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963) was an American poet, writer, and physician closely associated with modernism and imagism. In addition to his writing, Williams had a long career as a physician practicing both pedia ...
in his use of
idiomatic Idiom, also called idiomaticness or idiomaticity, is the syntactical, grammatical, or structural form peculiar to a language. Idiom is the realized structure of a language, as opposed to possible but unrealized structures that could have develope ...
American English rather than what they considered the 'heightened', or overtly poetic language favored by the
New Criticism New Criticism was a formalist 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 ...
movement. New York School poets like
Frank O'Hara Francis Russell "Frank" O'Hara (March 27, 1926 – July 25, 1966) was an American writer, poet, and art critic. A curator at the Museum of Modern Art, O'Hara became prominent in New York City's art world. O'Hara is regarded as a leading figure i ...
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 Metonymy () is a figure of speech in which a concept is referred to by the name of something closely associated with that thing or concept. Etymology The words ''metonymy'' and ''metonym'' come from grc, μετωνυμία, 'a change of name' ...
,
synecdoche Synecdoche ( ) is a type of metonymy: it is a figure of speech in which a term for a part of something is used to refer to the whole (''pars pro toto''), or vice versa (''totum pro parte''). The term comes from Greek . Examples in common Engl ...
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. Watten's & Grenier's magazine
This This may refer to: * ''This'', the singular proximal demonstrative pronoun Places * This, or ''Thinis'', an ancient city in Upper Egypt * This, Ardennes, a commune in France People with the surname * Hervé This, French culinary chemist Arts, e ...
(and
This Press ''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". The first three issu ...
which Watten edited), along with the magazine ''L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E'', published work by notable
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 in North Carolina. Background Although it lasted only twenty-three ...
such as
Robert Creeley Robert White Creeley (May 21, 1926 – March 30, 2005) 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. He was close with Char ...
and
Larry Eigner Larry Eigner (August 7, 1927 – February 3, 1996), also known as Laurence Joel Eigner, was an American poet of the second half of the twentieth century and one of the principal figures of the Black Mountain School. Eigner is associated with th ...
. 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, and the Language poets, who 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 Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the Allegheny West neighborhood and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris ...
, particularly in her writing after ''Tender Buttons,'' and
Louis Zukofsky Louis Zukofsky (January 23, 1904 – May 12, 1978) was an American poet. He was the primary instigator and theorist of the so-called "Objectivist" poets, a short lived collective of poets who after several decades of obscurity would reemerge a ...
, in his book-length poem ''A,'' are the modernist poets who most influenced the Language school. In the postwar period,
John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fi ...
,
Jackson Mac Low Jackson Mac Low (1922–2004) 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, whi ...
, and poets of the New York School (
John Ashbery John Lawrence Ashbery (July 28, 1927 – September 3, 2017) was an American poet and art critic. Ashbery is considered the most influential American poet of his time. Oxford University literary critic John Bayley wrote that Ashbery "sounded, in ...
,
Frank O'Hara Francis Russell "Frank" O'Hara (March 27, 1926 – July 25, 1966) was an American writer, poet, and art critic. A curator at the Museum of Modern Art, O'Hara became prominent in New York City's art world. O'Hara is regarded as a leading figure i ...
,
Ted Berrigan Ted Berrigan (November 15, 1934 – July 4, 1983) was an American poet. 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. After ...
) and
Black Mountain School Black Mountain College was a private liberal arts college in Black Mountain, North Carolina. It was founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice, Theodore Dreier, and several others. The college was ideologically organized around John Dewey's educati ...
(
Robert Creeley Robert White Creeley (May 21, 1926 – March 30, 2005) 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. He was close with Char ...
,
Charles Olson Charles Olson (27 December 1910 – 10 January 1970) was a second generation modern American 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 ...
, 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. 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 Praxis may refer to: Philosophy and religion * Praxis (process), the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, practised, embodied, or realised * Praxis model, a way of doing theology * Praxis (Byzantine Rite), the practice of fai ...
. Stein's influence was related to her own frequent use of language divorced from reference in her own writings. The language poets also drew on the philosophical works of
Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is considere ...
, especially the concepts of
language-game A language-game (german: Sprachspiel) is a philosophical concept developed by Ludwig Wittgenstein, referring to simple examples of language use and the actions into which the language is woven. Wittgenstein argued that a word or even a sentence h ...
s, meaning as use, and
family resemblance Family resemblance (german: Familienähnlichkeit, link=no) is a philosophical idea made popular by Ludwig Wittgenstein, with the best known exposition given in his posthumously published book ''Philosophical Investigations'' (1953). It argues tha ...
among different uses, as the solution to the
Problem of universals The problem of universals is an ancient question from metaphysics that has inspired a range of philosophical topics and disputes: Should the properties an object has in common with other objects, such as color and shape, be considered to exist be ...
.


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
Poetics Poetics is the theory of structure, form, and discourse within literature, and, in particular, within poetry. History The term ''poetics'' derives from the Ancient Greek ποιητικός ''poietikos'' "pertaining to poetry"; also "creative" an ...
,
Creative Writing Creative writing is any writing that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary ...
and
English Literature English literature is literature written in the English language from United Kingdom, its crown dependencies, the Republic of Ireland, the United States, and the countries of the former British Empire. ''The Encyclopaedia Britannica'' defines E ...
departments in prominent universities (
University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
,
SUNY Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 1846 ...
,
Wayne State University Wayne State University (WSU) is a public research university in Detroit, Michigan. It is Michigan's third-largest university. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 350 programs to nearly 25,000 ...
,
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
,
University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...
,
University of Maine The University of Maine (UMaine or UMO) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Orono, Maine. It was established in 1865 as the land-grant college of Maine and is the Flagship universities, flagshi ...
, the
Iowa Writers' Workshop The Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa, is a celebrated graduate-level creative writing program in the United States. The writer Lan Samantha Chang is its director. Graduates earn a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in Creative Wri ...
). Language poetry also developed affiliations with literary scenes outside the States, notably England, Canada (through the Kootenay school of writing in Vancouver),
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, the
USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
,
Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
,
Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
,
Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...
,
New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
, and
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
. It had a particularly interesting relation to the UK ''
avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
'': in the 1970s and 1980s there were extensive contacts between American Language poets and veteran UK writers like
Tom Raworth Thomas Moore Raworth (19 July 1938 – 8 February 2017) was an English-Irish poet, publisher, editor, and teacher who published over 40 books of poetry and prose during his life. His work has been translated and published in many countries. Rawor ...
and
Allen Fisher Allen Fisher (born 1944) 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. In the late 1960s, he was involved with Fluxshoe, the United ...
, or younger figures such as
Caroline Bergvall Caroline Bergvall (born 1962) is a French-Norwegian poet who has lived in England since 1989. Her work includes the adaption of Old English and Old Norse texts into audio text and sound art performances. Life and education Born in Hamburg, Germ ...
,
Maggie O'Sullivan Maggie O'Sullivan was born in 1951. She 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 th ...
, cris cheek, and
Ken Edwards Ken Edwards (born in Gibraltar, 1950) is a poet, editor, writer and musician who has lived in England since 1968. He is associated with The British Poetry Revival. Edwards was educated at King's College, London, and at Goldsmiths'. He has been in ...
(whose magazine ''Reality Studios'' was instrumental in the transatlantic dialogue between American and UK ''avant-garde''s). Other writers, such as
J.H. Prynne Jeremy Halvard Prynne (born 24 June 1936) is a British poet closely associated with the British Poetry Revival. Prynne grew up in Kent and was educated at St Dunstan's College, Catford, and Jesus College, Cambridge. He is a Life Fellow of Gonvil ...
and those associated with the so-called "Cambridge" poetry scene (
Rod Mengham Rod, Ror, Ród, Rőd, Rød, Röd, ROD, or R.O.D. may refer to: Devices * Birch rod, made out of twigs from birch or other trees for corporal punishment * Ceremonial rod, used to indicate a position of authority * Connecting rod, main, coupling, ...
,
Douglas Oliver Douglas Dunlop Oliver (14 September 1937 – 21 April 2000) 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, Par ...
,
Peter Riley Peter Riley (born 1940) is a contemporary English poet, essayist, and editor. Riley is known as a Cambridge poet, part of the group loosely associated with J. H. Prynne which today is acknowledged as an important center of innovative poetry i ...
) were perhaps more skeptical about language poetry and its associated
polemics Polemic () is contentious rhetoric intended to support a specific position by forthright claims and to undermine the opposing position. The practice of such argumentation is called ''polemics'', which are seen in arguments on controversial topics ...
and theoretical documents, though Geoff Ward wrote a book about the phenomenon. 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 (born July 22, 1961) is a Canadian poet, essayist and translator. She lives in France. Life and work Born in Toronto, Ontario, Robertson moved to British Columbia in 1979, first living on Saltspring Island, then in Vancouver, wh ...
,
Juliana Spahr Juliana Spahr (born 1966) 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. poet whose art and teaching demonstrate great imagination and dari ...
, the Kootenay School poets,
conceptual writing Conceptual writing (often used interchangeably with conceptual poetry) is a style of writing which relies on processes and experiments. This can include texts which may be reduced to a set of procedures, a generative instruction or constraint, or a ...
,
Flarf Flarf poetry was an ''avant-garde'' poetry movement of the early 21st century. The term ''Flarf'' was coined by the poet Gary Sullivan, who also wrote and published the earliest Flarf poems. Its first practitioners, working in loose collaboration o ...
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 often represent a distinct set of concerns. Among the poets are
Leslie Scalapino Leslie Scalapino (July 25, 1944 – May 28, 2010) was an American poet, experimental prose writer, playwright, essayist, and editor, sometimes grouped in with the Language poets, though she felt closely tied to the Beat poets. Writes Hejinian: ...
,
Madeline Gins Madeline Helen Arakawa Gins (November 7, 1941 – January 8, 2014) was an American artist, architect, and poet. Early life and education Gins was born in New York City, November 7, 1941, and raised on Long Island, in the village of Island Park. ...
,
Susan Howe Susan Howe (born June 10, 1937) is an American poet, scholar, essayist, and critic, who has been closely associated with the Language poets, among other poetry movements.
,
Lyn Hejinian Lyn Hejinian (born May 17, 1941) is an American poet, essayist, translator and publisher. She is often associated with the Language poets and is known for her landmark work ''My Life'' (Sun & Moon, 1987, original version Burning Deck, 1980), a ...
,
Carla Harryman Carla Harryman (born January 11, 1952) 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 t ...
,
Rae Armantrout Rae Armantrout (born April 13, 1947) is an American poet generally associated with the Language poets. She has published ten books of poetry and has also been featured in a number of major anthologies. Armantrout currently teaches at the Univers ...
, Jean Day,
Hannah Weiner Hannah Adelle Weiner (née Finegold) (November 4, 1928 – September 11, 1997) 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 writing ...
,
Tina Darragh Tina Darragh (born 1950) is an American poet who was one of the original members of the Language group of poets. Biography Darragh was born in Pittsburgh and grew up in the south suburb of McDonald, Pennsylvania. She began writing in 1968 and st ...
,
Erica Hunt Erica Hunt (born March 12, 1955) is a U.S. poet, essayist, teacher, mother, and organizer from New York City. She is often associated with the group of Language poets from her days living in San Francisco in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but he ...
, Lynne Dreyer,
Harryette Mullen Harryette Mullen (born July 1, 1953), Professor of English at University of California, Los Angeles, is an American poet, short story writer, and literary scholar. Life Mullen was born in Florence, Alabama, grew up in Fort Worth, Texas, gradua ...
,
Beverly Dahlen Beverly Dahlen (born November 7, 1934) is an American poet who lives and works in San Francisco, CA. Life and work Dahlen is a native of Portland, Oregon, where she attended public schools. she moved with her family to Eureka, California, after W ...
,
Johanna Drucker Johanna Drucker (born May 30, 1952) is an American author, book artist, visual theorist, and cultural critic. Her scholarly writing documents and critiques visual language: letterforms, typography, visual poetry, art, and lately, digital art aest ...
,
Abigail Child Abigail Child is a filmmaker, poet, and writer who has been active in experimental writing and media since the 1970s. She has completed more than thirty film and video works and installations, and six books. Child's early film work addressed the in ...
, and
Karen Mac Cormack Karen Mac Cormack (born Luanshya, Zambia, 1956) 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 Mc ...
; among the magazines HOW/ever, later the e-based journal
HOW2 How may refer to: * How (greeting), a word used in some misrepresentations of Native American/First Nations speech * How, an interrogative word in English grammar Art and entertainment Literature * How (book), ''How'' (book), a 2007 book by ...
; 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). Ten of the Language poets, each of whom at one time curated the reading series at the San Francisco coffee house of that name, collaborated to write ''The Grand Piano'', "an experiment in collective autobiography" published in ten small volumes. Editing and communication for the collaboration was accomplished over email. Authors of The Grand Piano were
Lyn Hejinian Lyn Hejinian (born May 17, 1941) is an American poet, essayist, translator and publisher. She is often associated with the Language poets and is known for her landmark work ''My Life'' (Sun & Moon, 1987, original version Burning Deck, 1980), a ...
,
Carla Harryman Carla Harryman (born January 11, 1952) 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 t ...
,
Rae Armantrout Rae Armantrout (born April 13, 1947) is an American poet generally associated with the Language poets. She has published ten books of poetry and has also been featured in a number of major anthologies. Armantrout currently teaches at the Univers ...
, Tom Mandel,
Ron Silliman Ron Silliman (born August 5, 1946) 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 wr ...
,
Barrett Watten Barrett Watten (born October 3, 1948) is an American poet, editor, and educator often associated with the Language poets. He is a professor of English at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan where he has taught modernism and cultural studies ...
, Steve Benson,
Bob Perelman Bob Perelman (born December 2, 1947) is an American poet, critic, editor, and teacher. He was an early exponent of the Language poets, an avant-garde movement, originating in the 1970s. He has helped shape a "formally adventurous, politically e ...
,
Ted Pearson Ted Pearson (born 1948 in Palo Alto, California) is an American poet. He is often associated with the Language poets. Life and work Pearson was born in 1948 in Palo Alto, California. He began studying liturgical music in 1960, instrumental music ...
, and
Kit Robinson Kit Robinson (born May 17, 1949) is an American poet, translator, writer and musician. An early member of the San Francisco Language poets circle, he has published 28 books of poetry. Life and work Born in Evanston, Illinois, Robinson graduated ...
. An eleventh member of the project,
Alan Bernheimer Alan Bernheimer (born 1948 in New York City) is an American poet, often associated with the San Francisco Language poets. Biography He attended Horace Mann School, and graduated in 1970 from Yale College, where he became friends with poets Steve ...
, served as an archivist and contributed one essay on the filmmaker
Warren Sonbert Warren Sonbert (June 26, 1947 – May 31, 1995) was an American experimental filmmaker whose work of nearly three decades began in New York in the mid-1960s, and continued in San Francisco throughout the second half of his life. Known for the exub ...
. The authors of The Grand Piano sought to reconnect their writing practices and to "recall and contextualize events from the period of the late 1970s." Each volume of ''The Grand Piano'' features essays by all ten authors in different sequence; often responding to prompts and problems arising from one another's essays in the series. Some poets, such as
Norman Finkelstein Norman Gary Finkelstein (; born December 8, 1953) is an American political scientist, activist, former professor, and author. His primary fields of research are the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust. He is a gr ...
, have stressed their own ambiguous relationship to "Language poetry", even after decades of fruitful engagement. Finkelstein, in a discussion with Mark Scroggins about ''The Grand Piano'', points to a "risk" when previously marginalized poets try to write their own literary histories, "not the least of which is a self-regard bordering on narcissism".Mark Scroggin (April 2007)
"The Toy Piano"
''Culture Industry'' blog, with commentary by Norman Finkelstein.


See also

*
List of poetry groups and movements A ''list'' is any set of items in a row. List or lists may also refer to: People * List (surname) Organizations * List College, an undergraduate division of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America * SC Germania List, German rugby union ...
*
List of literary movements Literary movements are a way to divide literature into categories of similar philosophical, topical, or aesthetic features, as opposed to divisions by literary genre, genre or period. Like other categorizations, literary movements provide languag ...


References


Further reading


Anthologies

* Allen, Donald, ed. ''
The New American Poetry 1945-1960 ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in En ...
.'' New York:
Grove Press Grove Press is an United States of America, American Imprint (trade name), publishing imprint that was founded in 1947. Imprints include: Black Cat, Evergreen, Venus Library, and Zebra. Barney Rosset purchased the company in 1951 and turned it in ...
, 1960. *Andrews, Bruce, and Charles Bernstein, eds. ''The "L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E" Book.'' Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1984. *Bernstein, Charles, ed.
Language Sampler
" Paris Review, 1982 ** " 43 Poets (1984)." boundary 2 ** ''The Politics of Poetic Form: Poetry and Public Policy.'' New York: Roof, 1990. *Hejinian, Lyn and Barrett Watten, eds.."A Guide to Poetics Journal: Writing in the Expanded Field, 1982–1998." Wesleyan University Press, 2013 *Hoover, Paul, ed. '' Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology.'' 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 Foundation The National Poetry Foundation (NPF) 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, Maine, Orono. Today it publishes poetry by individual authors as well as ...
, 1986; reprint ed. with a new afterword, 2002. An anthology of language poetry that serves as a very useful primer.


Books: Poetics and criticism

*Andrews, Bruce. ''Paradise and Method.'' Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1996. *Beach, Christopher, ed. ''Artifice and Indeterminacy: An Anthology of New Poetics.'' Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1998 *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 ** "Pitch of Poetry." University of Chicago Press, 2016. *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. *Lutzkanova-Vassileva, Albena, "The Testimonies of Russian and American Postmodern Poetry: Reference, Trauma, and History." New York: Bloomsbury, 2013 *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 Green Integer is an American publishing house of pocket-sized belles-lettres books, based in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1997 by Douglas Messerli, whose former publishing house was Sun & Moon, and it is edited by Per Bregne. Gre ...
Press, 1999. * Ratcliffe, Stephen. ''Listening to Reading.'' Albany, 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. *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 and cultural writing

*Armantrout, Rae. ''True.'' Berkeley, CA: Atelos , (Small Press Distribution), 1998. *Armantrout, Rae. ''Collected Prose.'' San Diego: Singing Horse, 2007. *Davies, Alan. ''Candor.'' Berkeley, CA, 1990. *Mandel, Tom. ''Realism.'' Providence, RI: Burning Deck. *Perelman, Bob, et al. ''The Grand Piano: An Experiment in Collective Autobiography.'' Detroit, MI: Mode A/This Press, 2006. . 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 Publishing Salt 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 ...
, 2004. *Watten, Barrett. ''Bad History.'' Berkeley, CA: Atelos , Small Press Distribution, 1998.


Articles

*Andrews, Bruce, "L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E", in ''The Little Magazine in Contemporary America'', ed. Ian Morris and Joanne Diaz (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015). Available online via Andrew's faculty page at Fordham University
Fordham English Connect
*Bartlett, Lee, "What is 'Language Poetry'?" ''Critical Inquiry'' 12 (1986): 741–752. Available through JStor. *Bernstein, Charles, "The Expanded Field of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E," in ''Routledge Companion to Experimental Literature'', ed. Joe Bray, Alison Gibbons, Brian McHale (London: Routledge, 2012). *Greer, Michael, "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. *Koirala, Saroj,
Linking Words with the World: The Language Poetry Mission
, ''Tribhuvan University Journal'', vol. 29 (2016), no. 1, pp. 175–190. . * Perloff, Marjorie
"The Word as Such: LANGUAGE: Poetry in the Eighties"
''American Poetry Review'' (May–June 1984), 13(3):15–22.


External links

*Douglas Messerli'

of ''"Language" Poetries'' (New Directions, 1987) *Barrett Watten,

(2006 blog post) *Suman Chakraborty,
Meaning, Unmeaning and the Poetics of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E
(2008)
''Electronic Poetry Center''
(1973)

(1974), via ''J. Henry Chunko'' blog of Danny Snelson (archived from th

on 2011-07-27)

*Bruce Andrews,

*Leevi Lehto,
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
(one of the keynote addresses at the International Conference on 20th Century American Poetry, hosted by
Central China Normal University Central China Normal University (CCNU) or Huazhong Normal University (), located in Luonan Subdistrict, Hongshan District in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province, is a comprehensive university directly under the administration of the Chinese Mini ...
,
Wuhan, China Wuhan (, ; ; ) is the capital of Hubei Province in the People's Republic of China. It is the largest city in Hubei and the most populous city in Central China, with a population of over eleven million, the ninth-most populous Chinese city and ...
, July 21, 2007)
Silliman's Blog: A weblog focused on contemporary poetry and poeticsCharles Bernstein author page and web log
*
Robert Archambeau Robert Archambeau (18 April 1933 — 25 April 2022) was a Canadian ceramic artist and potter. He also had an academic career in post-secondary art studies. Personal history Born in Toledo, Ohio, United States in 1933, he immigrated to Can ...
,
Bleed-Over and Decadence, or: No Bones About It, They're Talking About Language Poetry
(2005 blog post) *
The Grand Piano
' website devoted to the "collective autobiography" by 10 of the so-called "West Coast" group of Language poets *Geoff Ward,

' (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 Jerome John McGann (born July 22, 1937) is an American academic and 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 (B.S. 1959), Sy ...

"Contemporary Poetry, Alternate Routes"
(chapter from his 1988 book, ''Social Values and Poetic Acts'') *
Kate Lilley Kate Lilley (born 1960) is a contemporary Australian poet and academic. Early life Kate Lilley was born in Perth, Western Australia in 1960 and moved to Sydney with her family. She is the daughter of writers Dorothy Hewett and Merv Lilley, an ...

"This L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E"
(1997), ''Jacket Magazine'' website *Eleana Kim,

' (1994), with an extensive bibliography {{DEFAULTSORT:Language Poets Poetry movements Modernist poetry in English American poetry Contemporary literature 20th-century American literature American literary movements