<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Friends,<div><br></div><div>this Friday the WGCP will be meeting for our first of two sessions devoted to Charles Bernstein's most recent collection of poems, Recalculating (U of Chicago P, 2013). I have already sent some brief reviews of the book but here is a youtube link of Bernstein reading from the work, and this is very instructive (or could be) in understanding tone and mode of the work. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnKLy71IhdU">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnKLy71IhdU</a></div><div><br></div><div>We will be meeting from 3 - 5 PM in room 116 of the Whitney Humanities Center. Bernstein himself will join us two weeks later for our second session regarding his work.</div><div><br></div><div>As ever, all are welcome to attend, so please feel free to let interested parties know. I'll append below a long bio of Bernstein (pulled from the Poetry foundation's website).</div><div><br></div><div>Onward,</div><div>Richard Deming, Group Coordinator</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><div id="poet-top" class="tab-content active">
<h1>Charles Bernstein</h1> </div>
<span class="birthyear">b. 1950</span>
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<div class="image"><img src="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/uploads/authors/charles-bernstein/448x/charles-bernstein.jpg" class="" alt="Charles Bernstein"></div><p>Poet, essayist, theorist, and scholar Charles Bernstein was
born in New York City in 1950. He is a foundational member and leading
practitioner of Language poetry. Bernstein was educated at the Bronx
High School of Science and at Harvard University, where he studied
philosophy with Stanley Cavell and wrote his final thesis on <a class="author-bio-link" href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=6543">Gertrude Stein</a>
and Ludwig Wittgenstein. In the mid-1970s Bernstein became active in
the experimental poetry scenes in New York and San Francisco, not only
as a poet, but also as an editor, publisher, and theorist. With visual
artist and wife Susan Bee, Bernstein published several now well-known
poets whose work is associated with Language writing. Between 1978-1981,
with fellow poet <a class="author-bio-link" href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=82418">Bruce Andrews</a>,
he published L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E magazine, which became a forum for writing
that blurred, confused, and denied the boundary between poetry and
critical writing about poetry. Bernstein’s own poetic work explores the
wide-ranging uses of language within diverse social contexts. His poetry
combines the language of politics, popular culture, advertising,
literary jargon, corporate-speak, and myriad others to show the ways in
which language and culture are mutually constructive and interdependent.
As Bernstein says in an interview with Bradford Senning: “I want to
engage the materials of the culture, derange them as they have deranged
me, sound them out, as they sound me out.” Bernstein’s writing is
serious, engaging, and critical, while also being playful, irreverent
and deeply humorous.<br><br>Since the 1970s Bernstein has published
dozens of books, including poetry and essay collections, pamphlets,
translations, collaborations, and libretti. His poetry has been widely
anthologized and translated, and it has appeared in over 500 magazines
and periodicals.<br><br>In addition to his work as a poet, Bernstein is a
leading scholar and educator of poetry. From 1990 to 2003, he was David
Gray Professor of Poetry and Letters at the State University of New
York at Buffalo and Director of the Poetics Program, which he co-founded
with <a class="author-bio-link" href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=1509">Robert Creeley</a>. At SUNY Buffalo, he co-founded the <a href="http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/bernstein/" target="_blank">Electronic Poetry Center</a>
with Loss Glazier (<a href="http://epc.buffalo.edu">epc.buffalo.edu</a>), and in 2002, he was appointed SUNY
Distinguished Professor, the university’s highest rank. Bernstein is
currently Donald T. Regan Professor of English and Comparative
Literature at the University Pennsylvania. With Al Filreis, he is the
co-founder and co-editor of PENNsound (<a href="http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound">writing.upenn.edu/pennsound</a>), an
extensive archive of recorded poetry.<br><br>Bernstein was elected a
Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2006. Other
awards and honors include The 1999 Roy Harvy Pearce / Archive for New
Poetry Prize of the University of California, San Diego; the University
of Pennsylvania Dean’s Award for Innovative Teaching; a John Simon
Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship; and a National Endowment for the Arts
Creative Writing Fellowship. </p></div></div></div></body></html>