KEY
==Lorinne Neidecker -- From This Condensary* (cloth only):
probably only a few students will be able to afford this.
Charles Bernstein
Fall 1990
438 Clemens
Thursdays 12:30-3:10
The Peripheral: Reading Askance in Twentieth Century Poetry
and Poetics
TL-Talking Leaves (required books are indicated)
PR-Poetry Room/420 Capen
L-on reserve--Lockwood (3-day)
X--xerox book/handout
1/2 The Detail -- Poetry and Particulars
Lorine Niedecker -- From This Condensary* (cloth only): X,
PR, L. Esp: "In Exchange for Haiku" (117); "Lake Superior"
and "Thomas Jefferson" (193).
George Oppen -- Collected Poems* (PR, L)
Larry Eigner -- Areas Lights Heights: Writings 1954-1989* (PR)
(esp. essays beg. on pp. 6, 25, 35, 47, 49, 125, 138)
Larry Eigner -- Selected Poems* (PR)
Larry Eigner-- Time/Details/Of a Tree* (PR)
Robert Grenier -- Sentences (PR)
Robert Grenier -- A Day at the Beach * (PR)
Ted Greenwald -- Makes Sense (X)
Naomi Schor -- Reading in Detail (X, L): "Introduction"
3. Creeley (September 13)
Robert Creeley -- Collected Poems* (L, PR)
Robert Creeley -- Collected Essays* (cloth only): X, L, PR,
esp. sections xeroxed.
Creeley will be present
Note Creeley's four special seminars -- 9/17, 10/15,
11/5, 12/3 (from 4 to 6) constitute a supplement to this
course.
4.Flesh and the (French) Resistance to the Universal
Deleuze & Guattari -- Anti-Oedipus* (L)
Merleau-Ponty -- The Visible and the Invisible* (X, L), Ch. 4.
Luce Irigeray -- This Sex Which Is Not One* (X, L), Chs. 4&5.
Note: Susan Howe's lecture, readings and seminars, 10/24-
10/28 constitute a second supplement to this course,
continuing the theme of "The Peripheral" in several new
directions. Note especially issues of textual
materiality in her discussion of Dickinson's manuscripts
as relates to topics #s 4, 5, and 8 here.
5. Materializing the Language
Khlebnikov -- "The Word as Such" (X)
Stein -- Tender Buttons* (PR, L in Selected Writings)
Barthes -- Writing Degree Zero* (L)
6. Chance, Ambience, Noise (October 14)
John Cage -- "Lecture on Nothing" in Silence (X, L)
Jacques Attali -- Noise: The Political Economy of Music* (L)
Jackson Mac Low -- Representative Works* (PR)
Joan Retallack -- on Cage (X)
George Hartley -- on Mac Low (X)
Mac Low will be present
7. Artifice / Ashbery
Wilde, "Critic as Artist" and "The Decay of Lying" in Critical
Writings (ed. Ellman) (L) or in Complete Works
Veronica Forrest-Thomson, Poetic Artifice, (X to p. 37, L, PR)
Veronica Forrest Thomson, Collected Poems (X + PR)
bp Nichol, Art Facts* (PR)
John Ashbery, Tennis Court Oath* (PR, L), esp. "Tennis Court
Oath", "How Much Longer", & "Europe"
[Digressions, diversions, detours, interruptions, side shows,
and other narrative wanderings and errancies, obstructions,
and loitering, peripheral to this syllbus, but see Raymond
Federman's encyclopaedea of such, Take It Or Leave It.]
8. LeTeRs, or the Visual Representation of Language (Oct. 25)
Johanna Drucker (X)
Johanna Drucker -- artist's books in PR
Frank/Sayre, ed., The Line in Postmodern Poetry* (L)
Concrete and Visual Poetry Selection at the Poetry Room
Tom Phillips -- A Humament (PR)
for background on this topic (optional):
Gerald Janecek, The Look of Russian Literature (L)
Dick Higgins, Pattern Poems (L, PR)
Drucker will be present
9. Sound's Measure
Zukofsky's Catullus (PR)
David Melnick, Men in Aida* (The Iliad) (PR)
David Melnick, Pcoet* (PR)
Kurt Schwitters, "Merz Sonata" --audiotape will be played
Langston Hughes, Montage of a Dream Deferred (PR)
10. Palmer (November 8)
Notes for Echo Lake*
First Figure, Sun, The Circular Gates
Palmer will be present
11. Coolidge (November 15)
The Crystal Text*
Poloroid*
The Maintains, Space, Quartz Hearts, Solution Passage (PR)
Coolidge's Beckett (X)
Coolidge will be present
12. Figuring the Ground, or Inside/Out: What Frames Frame
Erving Goffman, Frame Analysis* (L)
Thomas Kuhn, Structures of Scientific Revolution* (L)
Arakawa and Madeline Gins: Mechanism of Meaning (PR? L? Art
Libr?)
Madeline Gins: Word Rain (PR)
13. Currents of Attention / Subject to Blur (December 6)
Piombino, Essays (X)
Piombino, Poems* (L, PR)
Leslie Scalapino, "Considering How Exaggerated the Music Is"
(X)
Piombino will be present.
14. -- last class is on a Tuesday Dec. 11 ("Thursday
schedule"). Papers due December 21, but sooner is better.
BOOKS:
George Oppen -- Collected Poems
Larry Eigner -- Areas Lights Heights: Writings 1954-1989*
Larry Eigner -- Selected Poems*
Larry Eigner-- Time/Details/Of a Tree*
Robert Grenier -- A Day at the Beach *
=Naomi Schor -- Reading in Detail
Robert Creeley -- Collected Poems*
==Robert Creeley -- Collected Essays* (cloth only: stock 5)
Deleuze & Guattari -- Anti-Oedipus*
==Merleau-Ponty -- The Visible and the Invisible*
==Luce Irigeray -- This Sex Which Is Not One*
Stein -- Tender Buttons* new Sun & Moon single-book version***
Barthes -- Writing Degree Zero*
Jacques Atali -- The Political Economy of Noise*
Jackson Mac Low -- Representative Works*
Wilde, Portable Wilde*
bp Nichol, Art Facts*
David Melnick, Men in Aida* (The Iliad) (PR)
David Melnick, Pcoet* (PR)
Michael Palmer, Notes for Echo Lake*
Clark Coolidge, The Crystal Text*
Coolidge, Poloroid*
Erving Goffman, Frame Analysis*
Thomas Kuhn, Structures of Scientific Revolution*
Nick Piombino, Poems*
John Ashbery, Tennis Court Oath*