Language poetry,
often considered an offshoot of postmodern literature, occupies an obscure
niche of the literary world. The genre’s
twisted syntax, mixing of registers, and grammatical ambiguities confuse
readers, leading the unappreciative to complain that language poets write for an
audience of linguists. Defenders of the
genre dismiss such criticism as ignorance of the poets’ true intent. Language poetry proceeds from the assumption
that “sensible” language patterns and literary techniques oppress the reader
because sensible language reproduces the ideology of the status quo and its
various manifestations: patriarchy,
consumerism, commodification, etc. To
liberate the individual within, readers must embrace the language of nonsense,
which, according to linguist Brian McHale, allows us “to project on to the
world of human culture a map for the reader to read himself or herself into. .
.for finding our ‘selves’ in the hyperspace of postmodern culture.”
The poetry of
Charles Bernstein, rich with humorous nonsense, demonstrates how nonsense can
function as an act of resistance.
Bernstein, whom many critics consider the leading voice of the nonsense
movement, achieves his poetic aim by blurring the grammatical categories of the
English language and by violating our expectations of literary cohesion. In the resulting melee, Bernstein introduces
a playful postmodern paradox, inviting the reader to construct meaning from
text that constantly deconstructs itself.
Blending
disparate and seemingly exclusive discourse styles, lexical choices, and
phrases, Bernstein draws on the idea, articulated in his own poetics, that a
poem “work at angles to the strong tidal pull of an expected sequence of a
sentence. . .giving two vectors at once--the anticipated projection underneath
and the actual wording above.” Subverting
our expectation that literature cohere to a consistent theme, world, or voice,
Bernstein challenges the long tradition of mimetic literature, presenting
instead the premise that a text conveys meaning by our acquiescence.
In the poem “Live
Acts,” for example, grammatical ambiguities force the reader to make
interpretive choices, a process that begins with the title itself. “Live” might function as an adjective,
modifying “acts” and suggesting a theatrical moment, perhaps a stage
performance in real-time. Interpreted as
a verb, however, “live” acquires a tone of command, spurring readers to embrace
a lifestyle philosophy. Depending on our
interpretation, we might expect either a description of an entertainment event
or a self-help treatise. As we read
further, a mishmash of different registers stumps our ability to discern a
single speaker behind the poem. Elevated
and colloquial diction derives alternately from Latin and Anglo Saxon; words
such as “redaction,” “somnambulance,” and “aquafloral” mix haphazardly with
“hideaway,” “get,” and “cups.” Such
devices blur the boundaries between discourse registers. “Live Acts,” placing under the umbrella of
one text a range of expressive styles, contains all the speakers associated
with those styles. We have not one
speaker but several, or perhaps none at all, as they seem to cancel each other
out. The reader can choose which
voice--one, none, or all--to accentuate, and thus consciously participate in
the constructivist process of representation.
Where “Live Acts”
calls attention to this process on the level of voice, the poem “Whose
Language” invites the reader to participate in the creation of setting. The poem, juxtaposing literal and figurative
elements in a way that confuses the identity of either, presents a world that
resists coherence to a sensible or expected point of reference:
. . .The door
Closes on a dream of default and
Denunciation (go get those piazzas),
Hankering after frozen (prose) ambiance
(ambivalence). Doors
to fall in, bells to dust,
Nuances to circumscribe. . .
Here Bernstein creates a metaphor--doors do not literally
close on dreams--but the metaphor quickly dissolves, as its vehicle (“dream”) acquires
literal qualities, since the verb “hankering” complements it and gives it an
agentive role. Normally, agentive nouns
denote sentient, tangible beings--things capable of taking action. “Dream,” in the context of “hankering,”
achieves a literal, sentient quality, masking the figurative role typical of
metaphor. Rather, any figurative role it
retains happens by reader consent. It
functions, in effect, as a free-floating signifier, awaiting a reader to grant
it literal or non-literal meaning.
Realizing this, we might question our awareness of “door.” Normally, the noun denotes a literal object;
however, doors do not close by themselves, as the door in the poem appears
to. We know this linguistically because
its position in the sentence--the noun phrase to the left of the verb--normally
correlates with agent. Thus, we cannot
simply categorize “door” as the literal half of the metaphor, since it
functions both literally and figuratively as a door and an agentive being. Bernstein continues this process through the
rest of the passage: “ambiance,” normally denoting something atmospheric and
intangible, in this case achieves solidity--the adjective “frozen” describes
it. Similarly, the parallelism Bernstein
creates between “doors,” “bells,” and “nuances” suggests some type of
equivalency between the nouns---we can conclude that “nuances,” functioning as
a parallel to “doors” and “bells,” also denotes something tangible, though such
interpretation defies convention.
In sum, the
poem’s ambiguities--the blurring of the literal and the figurative, the
equating of the intangible with the tangible--produce a world comprehended only
though unconventional frames of reference.
But the unconventional proves liberating, allowing us to accept the
strange sequential logic of the poem’s second sentence, “The dust descends and
the skylight caves in,” which counters our normal understanding of cause and
effect (we might expect dust to descend in the aftermath of a skylight caving
in, but not concurrently).
Interestingly, once we dismiss our expectations of cause and effect, we
realize the sentence never encouraged any in the first place--the subordinating
conjunction “as” implies only that one thing happened concurrently with the
other; it is our readerly expectations that force a relationship between
them. We realize that the cohesion of a
text to the outside world derives not intrinsically from language but rather
reader agreement. By rendering this
agreement conscious, via poems which resist unconscious assimilation to
expected frames of reference, Bernstein places the reader in the postmodern
position of seeing language as a meaning-making medium, rather than a
meaning-containing package.
Using linguistics
to investigate the postmodern aspects of Bernstein’s poetry pays Bernstein the
honor of close study. Some might
additionally investigate how language poetry violates speech act theory,
particularly the maxims of relevance and manner, creating texts which subvert
standard communication procedure. Others might investigate the poems
phonetically, exploring what some scholars consider the poems’ musical
wording. Whatever the focus, such
inquiries inevitably dwell on the linguistic fabric of the poems rather than
their content, an emphasis that recognizes a fundamental aspect of the
poetry: medium provides message. How we react to this depends on how much we
embrace the postmodern relish for ambiguity, which Bernstein happily fulfills,
granting multiple possibilities for play.
Thus, “Live” in the title “Live Acts” shuffles constantly between
adjective and verb; “I” in the poem “Wait” shuffles unresolved between first
person pronoun and third-person character name; and the metaphor in “Whose
Language” continually deconstructs itself, as we decide which noun to label as
figurative and which to label literal.
In the resulting nonsense, the reader finds the freedom that derives
from conscious, active participation in the meaning game.
Examining
language poetry on a theoretical level proves easier than assessing the genre’s
practical impact. To say language poetry
occupies an obscure niche of the literary world overstates its footprint. The realm of anonymity in which most writers
reside turns almost invisible in the neighborhood of language poets. Most readers who discover the genre credit
(or blame) academia, specifically graduate-level English programs, where the
language poets’ metacognitive antics find a friendly reception among faculty
heavily influenced by Derrida’s impact on discourse theory. An enclave of the esoteric, the place known
for producing dissertations nobody reads about literature few understand tends
to glorify expression unsuitable for mainstream consumption. But even English departments exercise caution
in their approach to language poetry, treating it as a curiosity best reserved
for graduate seminars and students versed in postmodern tropes. For most students, such seminars mark the
beginning and end of their involvement with the genre. A small percentage might write papers about
it, and of those, a select few might present at conferences. The number of people who actually read it for
fun might fill a cozy restaurant booth. To
nearby patrons, the conversation at this hypothetical gathering might well
sound like gibberish.
In my view, the
failure of language poetry to gain mainstream acceptance says more about the
limitation of the mainstream than the proficiency of poets. Most readers, especially those with attention
spans limited by point-and-click culture, feel little inclination for the metacognitive
leap required by conscious participation in the meaning game. Readers want texts to communicate content,
and while literary texts might “tell it slant,” readers don’t want to fixate so
much on the package that they can’t discern what’s inside. Put another way, mainstream readers prefer
passivity instead of partnership, message instead of metacognition. They don’t want to render opaque a medium
from which they expect clarity. Herein
lies the paradox of language poetry: the
more the genre asserts its poetic devices, the more it alienates those whom it
seeks to liberate. Artistically, the
language poet treads upon a knife edge, where the appreciation of nonsense
depends on the preservation of sense.
Asserting the primacy of the poem risks linguistic mayhem. Catering to the demands of the mainstream
risks a bland text incapable of provoking postmodern metacognitive
partnership. Step too far in either direction
and the artifact dissolves.