Charles Bernstein Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Joan Retallack

Critical Essay by Joan Retallack

SOURCE: “The Meta-Physick of Play: L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Poetry U.S.A.,” in Parnassus, Vol. 12, No. 1, Fall-Winter, 1984, pp. 213-44.

In the following excerpt, Retallack provides an overview of the theoretical and technical project of the Language poets, including Bernstein and his verse in Resistance.

Physick n. Medicine, especially a purgative. Wholesome or curative regimen or habit.

Nashe (1589) I wold perswade them to phisicke their faculties of seeing and hearing (OED)

                    Playing is inherently exciting and precarious.

(D. W. Winnicott, Playing and Reality)

I.

It’s called “Language Poetry,” which is odd enough. Isn’t all poetry made of language? And then there are all those equal signs in the official logo, the name of the magazine that was for four years the chief forum of the movement. Is the implication that all letters are equal? Surely not. If all letters were equal we’d have no words. It’s their unique and very unequal...
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