It has been variously labelled Language Poetry, Language Writing, L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E writing (after the magazine that ran from 1978 to 1981), and language-centred writing. It has been placed according to its geographical positions, on East or...
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It has been variously labelled Language Poetry, Language Writing, L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E writing (after the magazine that ran from 1978 to 1981), and language-centred writing. It has been placed according to its geographical positions, on East or West coasts; its venues in small magazines, independent presses and performance spaces, and its descent from historical precursors, be they the Objectivists, the composers-by-field of the Black Mountain School, the Russian Constructivists or American modernism à la William Carlos Williams and Gertrude Stein. Indeed, one of the few statements that can be made about it with little qualification is that it has both fostered and endured a crisis in representation more or less since it first became visible in the 1970s. In Poetry & Language Writing David Arnold grasps the nettle of Language poetry, reassessing its relationship with surrealism and providing a scholarly, intelligent way of understanding the movement. Poets discussed include Charles Bernstein, Susan Howe, Michael Palmer and Barrett Watten
It has been variously labelled 'Language Poetry', 'Language Writing', 'L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E writing' (after the magazine that ran from 1978 to 1981), and 'language-centred writing'. It has been variously defined as non-referential or of diminished...
more
It has been variously labelled 'Language Poetry', 'Language Writing', 'L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E writing' (after the magazine that ran from 1978 to 1981), and 'language-centred writing'. It has been variously defined as non-referential or of diminished reference, as textual poetry or a critique of expressivism, as a reaction against the 'workshop' poetry enshrined in creative writing departments across the United States. It has been variously described as non-academic, theory conscious, avant-garde, post-modern, and oppositional. It has been placed according to its geographical positions, on East or Wes
Title Page; Contents; Acknowledgements; Permissions; 1: The Scholarly Life of Language Writing; 2: Surrealism: An Excommunicated Vessel?; 3: Under the Sign of Negation: William Carlos Williams and Surrealism; 4: The Surreal-O-bjectivist Nexus; 5: Michael Palmer's Poetics of Witness; 6: Scorch and Scan: The Writing of Susan Howe; 7: 'Just Rehashed Surrealism'? The Writing of Barrett Watten; Notes; Bibliography; Index
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