Background
Bernstein, Charles was born on April 4, 1950 in New York City. Son of Herman and Sherry (Kegel) Bernstein.
( Shadowtime is an opera based on the work and life of th...)
Shadowtime is an opera based on the work and life of the German philosopher, essayist, and cultural critic Walter Benjamin. The libretto by Bernstein was written for the internationally renowned composer Brian Ferneyhough. The opera had its premier at the Munich Biennale in 2004 and has been performed in Paris and other German cities. In July of 2005, the opera will be performed by The Lincoln Center in New York City, at which time the published libretto will be featured. Charles Bernstein is one of the most noted poets of contemporary American literature. His books include Islets/Irritations, The Sophist, Dark City (which will be reprinted by Green Integer in 2006), With Strings, and a collection of selected poems, Republics of Reality: 1975–1995 (published by Sun & Moon Press and available through Green Integer). He is also acclaimed for his critical essays, which include Content’s Dream (Sun & Moon Press, now available from Northwestern University Press) and A Poetics (Harvard University Press), and, in addition, a collection of essays and poems, My Way: Speeches and Poems. Formerly the David Gray Professor of Poetry and Letters at the State University of New York, Buffalo, Bernstein is now a professor of literature at the University of Pennsylvania. He lives in New York City.
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( "Verse is born free but everywhere in chains. It has be...)
"Verse is born free but everywhere in chains. It has been my project to rattle the chains." (from "The Revenge of the Poet-Critic") In My Way, (in)famous language poet and critic Charles Bernstein deploys a wide variety of interlinked forms—speeches and poems, interviews and essays—to explore the place of poetry in American culture and in the university. Sometimes comic, sometimes dark, Bernstein's writing is irreverent but always relevant, "not structurally challenged, but structurally challenging." Addressing many interrelated issues, Bernstein moves from the role of the public intellectual to the poetics of scholarly prose, from vernacular modernism to idiosyncratic postmodernism, from identity politics to the resurgence of the aesthetic, from cultural studies to poetry as a performance art, from the small press movement to the Web. Along the way he provides "close listening" to such poets as Charles Reznikoff, Laura Riding, Susan Howe, Ezra Pound, Allen Ginsberg, and Gertrude Stein, as well as a fresh perspective on L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, the magazine he coedited that became a fulcrum for a new wave of North American writing. In his passionate defense of an activist, innovative poetry, Bernstein never departs from the culturally engaged, linguistically complex, yet often very funny writing that has characterized his unique approach to poetry for over twenty years. Offering some of his most daring work yet—essays in poetic lines, prose with poetic motifs, interviews miming speech, speeches veering into song—Charles Bernstein's My Way illuminates the newest developments in contemporary poetry with its own contributions to them. "The result of Bernstein's provocative groping is more stimulating than many books of either poetry or criticism have been in recent years."—Molly McQuade, Washington Post Book World "This book, for all of its centrifugal activity, is a singular yet globally relevant perspective on the literary arts and their institutions, offered in good faith, yet cranky and poignant enough to not be easily ignored."—Publishers Weekly "Bernstein has emerged as postmodern poetry's sous-chef of insouciance. My Way is another of his rich concoctions, fortified with intellect and seasoned with laughter."—Timothy Gray, American Literature
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( Heir to the democratic and poetic sensibilities of Walt...)
Heir to the democratic and poetic sensibilities of Walt Whitman and Allen Ginsberg, Charles Bernstein has always crafted verse that responds to its historical moment, but no previous collection of his poems so specifically addresses the events of its time as Girly Man, whichfeatures works written on the evening of September 11, 2001, and in response to the war in Iraq. Here, Bernstein speaks out, combining self-deprecating humor with incisive philosophical and political thinking. Composed of works of very different forms and moods—etchings from moments of acute crisis, comic excursions, formal excavations, confrontations with the cultural illogics of contemporary political consciousness—the poems work as an ensemble, each part contributing something necessary to an unrealizable and unrepresentable whole. A passionate defense of contingency, resistance, and multiplicity, Girly Man is a provocative and aesthetically challenging collection of radical verse from one of America’s most controversial poets. “A major achievement. . . . Anyone interested in contemporary poetry should seek out the collection, if only to read one of our most provocative poet-critics writing his most engaging poems to date.”—Thomas Devaney, PhiladelphiaInquirer “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.”—Robert Pinsky, Washington Post
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(The British edition of Charles Bernstein's critically-acc...)
The British edition of Charles Bernstein's critically-acclaimed selected poems. Bernstein is widely regarded as one of the USA's most important contemporary poets and enjoys an international reputation. Salt will be publishing this selection alongside a long-awaited critical Companion to Bernstein's work.
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(Description: A Conversation with David Antin is a four-mo...)
Description: A Conversation with David Antin is a four-month e-mail exchange between the poet/essayist Charles Bernstein and artist/poet/critic David Antin. Ideas on art, poetry, performance, and the life of one of the most singular thinkers in America are discussed. The combination of the speed of electronic transmission and the rigors of writing as opposed to talking, made it, in Antin's words, "a cross between the 18th-century and the 21st." This book presents the entirety of their dialogue, wholly uncut, and is an essential document about a man whose thought and writing has helped define the avant-garde for nearly half a century.
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( A NEW RETROSPECTIVE OF ONE OF AMERICA'S MOST INNOVATIVE...)
A NEW RETROSPECTIVE OF ONE OF AMERICA'S MOST INNOVATIVE POETS All the Whiskey in Heaven brings together Charles Bernstein's best work from the past thirty years, an astonishing assortment of different types of poems. Yet despite the distinctive differences from poem to poem, Bernstein's characteristic explorations of how language both limits and liberates thought are present throughout. Modulating the comic and the dark structural invention with buoyant soundplay, these challenging works give way to poems of lyric excess and striking emotional range. This is poetry for poetry's sake, as formally radical as it is socially engaged, providing equal measures of aesthetic pleasure, hilarity, and philosophical reflection. Long considered one of America's most inventive and influential contemporary poets, Bernstein reveals himself to be both trickster and charmer.
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(Poetry. "In the poems of CONTROLLING INTERESTS Bernstein ...)
Poetry. "In the poems of CONTROLLING INTERESTS Bernstein continually reveals his desire for the concomitance of the individual and the world, of all language and experience . This book is one of the most original and imaginative in American lyric verse"—Douglas Messerli. "Bernstein presents the reader with a world in which the articulation of an individual language is all but prevented by the official discourses that bombard the consciousness from all sides . He is on to something important"—Marjorie Perloff. "It is writing of absolute necessity, demanding not to be appreciated, but understood"—Ron Silliman.
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(A pivotal book for Bernstein, The Sophist demonstrated hi...)
A pivotal book for Bernstein, The Sophist demonstrated his great range of subject matter, style, and genre. By contrasting wildly different approaches to poetry, Bernstein not only questions the intrinsic value of any given form but also provides a model for his later heterogeneous books, including My Way and With Strings.
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Bernstein, Charles was born on April 4, 1950 in New York City. Son of Herman and Sherry (Kegel) Bernstein.
AB, Harvard University, 1972.
Visiting lecturer, department literature University California San Diego, 1985—2008. Visiting professor, department english Queens College, City University of New York, 1988. Visiting faculty/series coordinator Wolfson Center for National Affairs, New School for Social Research, 1988.
Lecturer, creative writing program Princeton University, 1989, 1990. Butler Chair professor (visiting), department english State University of New York, Buffalo, 1989. Visiting professor City University of New York, 1998, Columbia University, 2002.
David Gray Professor of Poetry and Letters, department english, director and co-founder poetics program, associate member program in comparative literature State University of New York, Buffalo, 1990—2003, State University of New York Distinguished Professor, 2002—2003. Donald T. Regan Professor English University Pennsylvania, since 2003. Presenter of poetry readings, lecturers worldwide.
Freelance writer, numerous medical publications and healthcare media producers, 1976-1989. Director research Henny Youngman Center for Stand-up Poetry and Avant-Garde Comedy. Advisor, Transdisciplinary Doctor of Philosophy program on Languages, Identities, and Globalization, Faculty of Arts & Sciences, University Coimbra, since 2005.
Board member Ontological Hysteric Theatre, Ubuweb Foundation, Futurepoem Books, Ugly Duckling Presse. Greenwood Encyclopedia American Poetry, Gertrude Stein Awards (Los Angeles). Syntax Project for the Arts, Pengrove, California, Poems for the Millennium: The University California Book of Modern and Postmodern Poetry, educated Jerome Rothenberg and Pierre Joris.
Writing Workshop Leader, The Poetry Project, St. Mark's Church, 1980 81. Visiting lecturer, department English, University Auckland, New Zealand,1986. Writer in residence, graduate writing program, Brown University, 1988.
Visiting writer, graduate creative writing Program, Temple University, 1988. Poet in residence, Kootenay School of Writing, Vancouver,1989. Visiting poet, Naropa Institute Poetics Program, Boulder 1991, 2005, visiting instructor, Milton Avery Graduate School Art, Bard College, 1992.
Visiting professor, Universidad de la Laguna, Tenerife, Spain, 1993.
( Heir to the democratic and poetic sensibilities of Walt...)
( A NEW RETROSPECTIVE OF ONE OF AMERICA'S MOST INNOVATIVE...)
(Description: A Conversation with David Antin is a four-mo...)
( Shadowtime is an opera based on the work and life of th...)
(A pivotal book for Bernstein, The Sophist demonstrated hi...)
(The Textile Series is a micropress and used book seller s...)
(The British edition of Charles Bernstein's critically-acc...)
( "Verse is born free but everywhere in chains. It has be...)
(Book by Bernstein, Charles)
(Book by Bernstein, Charles)
(Poetry. "In the poems of CONTROLLING INTERESTS Bernstein ...)
(1st)
Fellow: American Academy Arts & Sciences. Member: Modern Language Association (member executive committee, Poetry Division 1998—2002, member executive committee Discussion Group for Bibliography & Textual Studies since 2004), Poets and Writers Directory of America Writers, American Society of Composers (Standard award), Phi Beta Kappa (of Alpha).
Married Susan Bee Laufer, August 17, 1977. Children: Emma Bee, Felix Laufer.