Free book (no restrictions) - My Way: Speeches and Poems (prose and verse)

[paola]

April's free book from the University of Chicago Press.

Charles Bernstein, "My Way: Speeches and Poems" The blurb states "Bernstein is a poet, provocateur, critic, satirist, and gadfly, who wields words as a scalpel and as a switchblade." More on the author here.

Below what the critics say.

From Publishers Weekly

One of the key theorists of the workshop-busting Language poets, the charismatic Bernstein (A Poetics; Dark City, Rough Trades) continues to expand his purview past the formal concerns of that group. His latest critico-poetic salvo takes in issues of multiculuralism; "standard" vs. "non-standard" forms of language usage; the ossified conservative agenda of literary institutions in the United States; poetry in performance?both on the page and on stage; and graduate-level pedagogical practices ("Frame Lock"). Eclectic both in its forms of expression (scholarly essays; interviews; generous explications of poets like Charles Reznikoff, Larry Eigner, Hannah Weiner and Susan Howe; quirky poems; and forms that are hybrids of all of these) and in its range of interests, My Way also grants us peeks beneath the surface of Bernstein's sometimes strategically difficult discourse, as in a long autobiographical interview with Loss Glazier, or deceptively accessible poems like "A Test of Poetry," which documents the traumas of his translators. "Water Images of The New Yorker" is a fine little investigative piece, discovering that 86% of the poems over a 16 week period contained images of water, while "Dear Mr. Fanelli," a poem in skinny Schuyleresque lines, takes the language of a subway administrator's "request for comments" literally, highlighting how even bureaucratic language is vexed with double-meanings. "Poetics of the Americas" creates an important bridge between the ethnically marginalized practices of poets like Claude McKay and Paul Lawrence Dunbar and more self-consciously "avant-garde" writers like Louis Zukofsky, Basil Bunting and the Language poets themselves. This book, for all of its centrifugal activity, is a singular yet globally relevant perspective on the literary arts and their institutions, offered in good faith, yet cranky and poignant enough to not be easily ignored.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

In this collection of speeches, cultural critiques, personal essays and anecdotes, interviews, and poems, Bernstein (poetry and letters, SUNY at Buffalo) intentionally bounces back and forth among sociological, ontological, poetic, and banal frequencies. There are flashes of brilliance but often with enormous helpings of malice and defensiveness. Self-indulgence in the style and authoritative presumptions and irreverent cleverness in the writing sometimes detract from what might have made for a leaner, more interesting volume. Bernstein loves class polemics, has a Rousseauean notion of "relevant discourse," and displays a wicked sense of humor. But his rhetoric often opts for inference over observation, and readers may be left wandering whether for Bernstein having it "my way" isn't having it at all. If one is after genuine insight into the elegance of writing (which counts modesty as an ingredient), one would do better with Marie Ponsot and Rosemary Deen's Beat Not the Poor Desk (1981). For those who like their discourse theoretical and shrill.?Scott Hightower, NYU/Gallatin, New York
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

[koland]

Could someone fix the header? This is an Adobe ADE-DRM'd PDF, as always (just double checked my copy to see if I was mistaken).

[paola]

Originally Posted by koland

Could someone fix the header? This is an Adobe ADE-DRM'd PDF, as always (just double checked my copy to see if I was mistaken).

sorry, I meant no geographical restictions - I have amended the title, thanks!

EDIT: I have amended the title in my message, but it does not show in the title thread, perhaps we need a moderator.