A Poetics

Decorative typefaces

Charles Bernstein

1992

Harvard University

 
“The pieces collected in A Poetics are remarkable not only for the ever-changing spin they put on language, but also for expanding our sense of the consequences of this rethinking of poetic form(s) in the broadest sense.” — Jan Plug, L’Esprit Créateur
 
“Charles Bernstein’s critical prose is the extension of his increasingly important poetic oeuvre. In their theoretical sophistication, their radical formal construction, and, above all, their great boldness and originality, many of the essays in this book have already become underground classics, providing us with a roadmap for how to come to terms with the verbal/visual art and culture of our own time. Part manifesto, part critique, part stringent analysis, A Poetics carries on the tradition of Pound’s ABC of Reading and Stein’s Lectures in America.” — Marjorie Perloff, Stanford University