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<!--StartFragment--><p class="MsoNormal">Dear Friends,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>I wanted to offer a brief review of the recent visit of the
poet Charles Bernstein to the WGCP.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>Bernstein joined us on Friday, February 28<sup>th</sup> to discuss his
work with us, with a particular emphasis on his latest collection of poems, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Recalculating</i>. Thirty members were in
attendance.</p><p class="MsoNormal">As there are a number of poems that are either
“conventional” translations as well as radical experiments in translation
(including homophonic translations), the practice of translating was a
recurring trope that framed the conversation.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>Indeed, Bernstein argued that any use of language is an act of
translation because it brings experience into language.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Moreover, any use of language is interpreted
by auditors or readers (listening/reading are acts of interpretation), and they
in turn translate what they hear/read into their domain of experience and
understanding.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Interpretation is a form
of translation, and translation is a form of interpretation.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But then writing is always an interpretation
of the meanings of words and grammatical forms. For that reason, Bernstein sees
no qualitative difference between his “original” poems and any translations
that he makes. The inclusion of both of these kinds of poems in his collection
then starts to make that case, and push against the insistence that a
collection of poems is the expression of a single, authoritative “voice” of an
author and his/her experience.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Instead,
Bernstein reveals the seams and the weave of the texts that he assembles.
Bernstein is striving to reveal the clash of voices within a text—and presumably
within as well as between text and audience.</p><p class="MsoNormal">He indicated that his continual use of wordplay is a way of disrupting
the flow of expectations to reveal that expectations direct and even
overdetermine interpretation. He himself misreads clichés and idioms all the
time, and so manages to work these into the texts he writes to invert and
subvert passive attention to skims over the surfaces of familiar words. He also
indicated that for him the music of poetry often is found in its sonic
edges.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Thus, he works for a disruptive
syntax or the use of banal or even “ugly” language (certainly language that
seems out of place in a traditional conception of the pleasing aesthetics of a
lyric poem) to make edges present and explicit in the texts.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This also allows for the use of irony, which
is important to Bernstein’s work.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Irony
allows for a multiplicity of meanings that also takes into account overlapping
contexts, expectations, and the discussion texts have with other texts,
contemporary events, and history.</p><p class="MsoNormal">We discussed, too, the ways that his recent work,
particularly the collection’s title poem, incorporates some more directly
personal articulations in regard to personal tragedy.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Bernstein admitted he was conflicted with the
inclusion of those moments because they might be seen as having the
autobiographical dictate the poem as a whole rather than being seen as a
possible mode included amongst all the others that inhabit this long poem. Bernstein
worried about the ethical dimensions as well—would the inclusion of references
to family tragedy in some way transform the events?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>If there were an intense empathy or some
sense of catharsis, would that in any way redeem the events—in this case, the
death of a loved one.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Bernstein did not
explicitly discuss the ethics of this, but made it clear that there could be no
transformation or changed perspective that could be possible without negating
the tragedy itself.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The poem—as
poem—instead leaves open an resolvable paradox, which may be the only way to
encounter such loss on its own terms.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><p class="MsoNormal">One last thing--at an earlier session, there was some discussion of Bernstein's list of formal experiments. That can be found here: <a href="http://www.writing.upenn.edu/bernstein/experiments.html">http://www.writing.upenn.edu/bernstein/experiments.html</a></p></p><p class="MsoNormal">As is evident, the discussion was wide-ranging and
ambitious, with a marked sense of the personal, political, and ethical stakes
of poetry.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We are very grateful to have had
Charles Bernstein visit us once again; he was one of the first visitors to the
group’s discussions (almost 10 years ago) and is our first repeat visitor.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This pair of sessions will be our only
meetings this semester (alas!).<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><br></p><p class="MsoNormal">Yours truly,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Richard Deming, Group Coordinator<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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