My Way_ Speeches and Poems - Charles Bernstein

250 A N AUT 0 B lOG RAP HIe A LIN T E R V lEW
you see the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E project-or its permutationsprojecting
into the present? Certainly the locus of such an activity is
modified by, on the one hand, a number of these poets now appearing
in teaching anthologies, and on the other, the number of
"younger" writers entering this "Iocation."
CB: As names like Language poetry, Language writing, language-centered
writing, or language-oriented writing become fixed in time they
lose generic and projective force. About ten years ago, I remember
reading a call for submissions of "Ianguage" poetry for a new magazine
that said, "You may be a language poet and not know itl" That
seemed right to me: the terms were sufficiently underdetermined that
there was room for projection. In contrast, when The New York Times
Magazine ran a big poetry feature last spring that purported to map
contemporary poetry, they carefully excluded from their list of "Language
Poets" every one of the many participants in
L=A=N = G= U =A= G=E-a nasty business unfortunately characteristic
of the sort of cultural disinformation practiced at places like the Times.
Still, one test of an art's vitality is that it manages to unsettle, and
it seems like this work continues to do that, and I for one am happy
to embrace the description of my work as ungainly solipsistic incoherence
that has no meaning. No meaning at all.
Which is to say, projection has its consequences, and one of them
is that the recognition (positive or negative) accorded even a projection
tends to split off, objectify, and atomize the "project", both stylistically
and generationally. Then again, there's no need to get glued
to a bill of particulars circa 1978 or 1988 when you can just as easily
remain attentive to shifting conditions and contexts, new names and
new work. But when this happens, and this is why it's appealing, the
"Iocation" you mention in your question changes: just that it's my
desire to participate in the emerging locations, to reground myself.
So my current identification is not with work that takes the same
positions as L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E but with work that pursues these
and related issues. I find extraordinary company just now, in so many
magazines and books that I can hardly begin to keep up. For example,
the Poetics e-mail discussion group, and the Electronic Poetry
Center, with which we are both involved, seem to me to be continuing
the work of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, Segue Distributing, and the
like; just as the poetry publishing of Sun & Moon Press and Roof
Books, or the Ear Inn reading series, for example, continue to flourish,
partly because they have welcomed new writers.
And of my companions of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E days, I find it
less remarkable than it probably is how contemporary, how crucial,