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.
