Charles Bernstein is mostly widely known for his early influence in Language poetry. A loose constellation of experimental writers in New York, San Francisco, and Toronto, Language poetry emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s and promoted new forms...

Charles Bernstein writes both prose and poetry about poetry, sometimes brilliantly, in ways calculated to upset the middlebrow and thwart the bland. The more you like the poetic equivalent of a nice tune, easy to hum, the more Bernstein means to disrupt your complacency....

Charles Bernstein. My Way: Speeches and Poems. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. Since the late 1970s, Charles Bernstein has been one of America's most vocal advocates of alternatives to what he problematically calls "official verse culture." A cofounder of the brief-lived...

When you're done loading your iPod with Better than Ezra and Carlos Santana, why not try a little Ezra Pound or William Carlos Williams?Recordings of the poets' works are available for free through PennSound, an online audio archive developed by professors at the University of...

It looked like a glaring snub when Jonny Greenwood's music for "There Will Be Blood" wasn't among the five Academy Award nominees for best original score.Turns out it wasn't eligible — because it wasn't entirely original.Much of the searing music from the Radiohead guitarist had...

In the following interview, Bernstein discusses his family background, his childhood, formative influences and intellectual awakening, his Harvard education, and early years as a poet and founder of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E.

In the following review of Dark City, Lazer examines the distinguishing characteristics and recurring thematic preoccupations of Bernstein's poetry. Lazer argues that Bernstein's experimental verse successfully challenges accepted notions about poetry, language, and society, and that the exclusion of his work from mainstream literary journals and anthologies is an egregious oversight.

In the following excerpt, Shetley discusses the intellectual and aesthetic aspirations of the language poets and offers analysis of Bernstein's “The Kiwi Bird in the Kiwi Tree.” Shetley contends that Bernstein's verse, despite its sophisticated theoretical underpinnings, is overly easy to compose due to its lack of balance between meaning and randomness.