My Way_ Speeches and Poems - Charles Bernstein

REVENGE OF THE POET-CRITIC 5
often it is a breaking down of the chain of sense that lets me find my way.
A way away from the scanning over and over what went wrong-the failure
of community that may, in flits and faults, give way to conversation. I
start with the senselessness of the world and try to make some sense with
it, as if words were visceral and thoughts could be tolls. It's the loss, I want
to say, I don't know of what-but not to find either (neither voice nor truth:
voicings, trusts).
Don't Be So Sure
(Don't Be Saussure)
My cup is my cap
& my cap is my cup
When the coffee is hot
It ruins my hat
We clap and we slap
Have sup with our pap
But won't someone please
Get me a drink
What is a poet-critic, or critic-poet, or professor-poet-critic?; which comes
first and how can you tell?; do the administrative and adjudicative roles of
a professor mark the sell-out of the poet?; does critical thinking mar creativity,
as so many of the articles in the Associated Writing Program
newsletter insist? Can poets and scholars share responsibilities for teaching
literature and cultural studies or must poets continue to be relegated
to, or is it protected by, creative writing workshops, where, alone in the
postmodern university, the expressive self survives?
Of course I must agree, I confide to the prize-winning poet, all this stuff
about poetry groups and movements is a publicity stunt for poets without
the imaginative capacity to assert their unique individuality in forms and
voices utterly indistinguishable from the other prize-winning poets who
vote these awards to each other on panels and juries that systematically
rule out any trace of individuality expressed by particularity of tone, diction,
syntax, or form. Indeed, you force me to concede the point, I tell the
politically committed academic, this poetry excludes most of the people
in the world (who haven't yet learned English!); it's turned its back on the
ordinary reader by making no effort to reach out to him or her. And, yes,
indeed, Professor, I also must admit, even though it seems to go against
your last point, that all this poetics stuff is just an attempt to attract readers,
making the work just one more commodity being peddled. Of course
you're right, I tell the few friends I have left, now that I am poet-professor