bernstei@buffalo.edu, 645-3810
office hours Thursday 9:30-11:30, or by appointment
Requirements: Weekly short response paper; one or more longer responses, to
be presented in class, to guest speakers or assigned or recommended book. Final
paper or project.
Please post responses and additional comments on the seminar reading or classes
on our listserve, CORE-L. Participation in CORE-L is an essential part of the
class. (Send message to "listserv@listserv.buffalo.edu" that says
"sub core-l Jill Jillway" substituting your name for Jill Jillway.)
The Wednesdays at Four series
is an integral part of the class. Please attend as possible. Responses in seminar
and Core-L may be to the syllabus readings or to these events.
Core Texts available at Talking Leaves Books:
Don Allen, ed., New American Poetry
Pierre Joris, Poasis
Jackson Mac Low, Representative Works
Marjorie Perloff, Wittgenstein's Ladder
_______, Twentieth Century Modernism
Larry Eigner, readiness/enough/depends/on
______ , Areas/Lights/Heights: Writings 1954-1989
Robert Creeley, Collected Poems
________ , Presences
David Antin, Talking
________, A Conversation with David Antin / Charles Bernstein
Hannah Weiner, We Speak Silent
Jack Spicer, The House that Jack Built: Collected Lectures, ed. Peter
Gizzi
_________, The Collected Books (recommended)
Peter Gizzi, Artificial Heart
Elizabeth Willis, Turneresque
1 (Jan. 16): Introduction.
Background on the 1950s: Al Filries's "The
Literature & Culture of the American 1950s"
2. (Jan. 23): New American Poetry
Charles Olson, poems in NAP, "Projective Verse" and "Letter
to Elaine Feinstein" in NAP; "Proprioception" (handout);
further Olson from "Literature on Line" (LION) (see
library e-resources pages) and in library. See also Olson
EPC page.
Robert Duncan, NAP selection,
including Poetics. -from LION, print out/search as "My Mother Would be
a Falconress", "Often I Would Be Permitted to Return to a Meadow",
"The Structure of Rime I", "After a Long Illness", "A
Song From The Structures Of Rime Ringing As The Poet Paul Celan Sings",
John Wieners, NAP selection, including Poetics;
Wieners recording and transcript ("Poem for Painters"); further
Weiner from LION and in library esp. Hotel Wentley Poems
*
Further Reading:
The Tysh group in Vancounver
3. (Jan. 30) Pierre Joris on (1)
Celan and (2) The Lost New Americans: Owens, Schwerner, Eshleman, & Co.
Joris, Poasis & EPC home page (seminar visit)
____, nomadology essay (word document for class
use only)
Selected poems by Celan and Owens, Schwerner, Eshleman, and others (xerox handout)
Celan: Todesfuge in
German and Felstiner translationand sound
file (mp3), Norton
Celan page with more audio and poems
Joris
on Todtnauberg
Bernstein on Todnauberg (in Textual Practice)
4. (Feb. 6) Robert Greiner on Larry Eigner (seminar visit)
Larry Eigner. readiness/enough/depends/on (ed. Grenier)
____, Areas/Lights/Heights: Writings 1954-1989, ed. Benjamin Friedlander
Eigner EPC home page
Grenier on Eigner from Verdure (handout)
Recommended:
In Poetry Collection: as many Eigner books, as possible; esp Antother Time
in Fragments; Eigner in LION
Grenier: EPC home page,
esp. "Realizing Things"; Sentences, Phantom Anthems
____from Ecopoetics #1
____from Poetry Plastique (handout)
5. (Feb. 13) Hannah Weiner
We Speak Silent
Clairvoyant Journal (Poetry Collection, plus a few copies will circulate)
EPC home page and LINEbreak interview, Radio Reading Project and other sound
files
Little Books/Indians (via EPC home page)
6. (Feb. 20) Robert Creeley: Discussion
7. (Feb. 27) Creeley seminar visit
Colllected Poems
Presences
Creeley in NAP: poetry and poetics
EPC home page
LINEbreak interview
Selected Essays (handout)
Bernstein, "Creeley’s
Eye and the Fiction of Self"
Recommended:
Collected Essays
So There: Poems 1976-1983
Just in Time: Poems 1984-1994
8. (March 6): David Antin Discussion
Selected Poems (LIBRARY RESERVE and Poetry Collection)
Talking: "The November Exercises" & "Talking at Pomona"
9. (March 20): Marjorie Perloff seminar
visit
Wittgenstein's Ladder & 20th Century Modernisms
10. March 27: David Antin Seminar Visit
A Conversation with Charles Bernstein
Talking (rest of book)
11. (April 3) Jackson Mac Low Seminar Visit
Mac Low, Representative Work; EPC home
page; LINEbreak interview
12. (April 10) Peter Gizzi on Jack Spicer and
Elizabeth Willis on Willis on "Christina
Rossetti and Pre-Raphaelite Noir"
Talk: Gizzi on Spicer (seminar visit)
Jack Spicer, The House that Jack Built, ed. Gizzi
_____, Collected Books (Poetry Collection and LION): see esp. Language
_____, Selections in NAP including Poetics
Handout for Willis talk
Gizzi, Artificial Heart
Willis, Turneresque
13. (April 17) Ashbery/O'Hara/Guest/Schuyler
Guest (and also Guest LINEbreak), Schulyer,
O'Hara (Audio), Ashbery (& Ashbery sound file), O'Hara
in NAP including Poetics for O'Hara and Schuyler
Supplemented by participant suggestions/presentations from library and web:
see especially post 1985 Guest, Fair Realism, Defensive Rapture,
&c.
14. (April 24) Last Class