Location via proxy:   [ UP ]  
[Report a bug]   [Manage cookies]                
Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    From $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Islets/Irritations
    Islets/Irritations
    Islets/Irritations
    Ebook115 pages34 minutes

    Islets/Irritations

    By Charles Bernstein

    4/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Poetry. " As the book's title implies, ISLETS/IRRITATIONS is frustrated with personal isolation-but also irritated with 'eyelets,' or any tight limits imposed from the outside. Bernstein attempts to create an inclusive and universal space by transcribing the transpersonal and instantaneous chunks of matter. that surround us in contemporary human society every day. A remarkable and demanding poet, associated with a tendency that may be the foundation for a major change in the way we write and read poetry"-Kenneth Funsten, Los Angeles Times Book Review. Charles Bernstein (born April 4, 1950) is an American poet, theorist, editor, and literary scholar. Bernstein holds the Donald T. Regan Chair in the Department of English at the University of Pennsylvania. He is one of the most prominent members of the Language (or L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E) poets. In 2006 he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2005, Bernstein was awarded the Dean's Award for Innovation in Teaching at the University of Pennsylvania. He has also been a visiting professor at Columbia University, Brown University, and Princeton University. 
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRoof Books
    Release dateJun 5, 1905
    ISBN9780937804476
    Islets/Irritations
    Author

    Charles Bernstein

    CHARLES BERNSTEIN is author of Pitch of Poetry and All the Whiskey in Heaven: Selected Poems. He is the Donald T. Regan professor of english and comparative literature at the University of Pennsylvania.

    Read more from Charles Bernstein

    Related to Islets/Irritations

    Related ebooks

    Poetry For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • UNLIMITED

      Five Poems

      Mar 1, 2022

      Five Poems
      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Toward A Unified Theory

      Jan 1, 2022

      Condemned to live inside the weatherof our moods What are you doing? Filling this bucket with waterand dumping it into the water They can’t excavate the amphitheater further because it extends backbeneath the houses We close their eyes not for thembu

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      from BLACK PASTORAL

      Nov 1, 2023

      somewheres, some lifetimes ago I have run so far, so long.There is nowhere I haven’t beenBut here, in this field, a bodyLength from the ragged brinkThat gives way to forest.I collapsed here, the thin, hard slipOf me whittled at both ends.I want badly

      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Five Poems

      May 1, 2023

      Let’s be GodFor a moment, Shall we?That which invites Composition,That which is suspended From a great height,The presence Of approximationHeavy in the meadows, I’m not afraid,And yet My shroud vanishesIn these lines, I am so weptPast weeping, And wh

      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Diaspora Sonnets

      Sep 1, 2022

      The old men drink their spritzers and gossipunder awnings. Red hued and blustery, like two roosters on the side of a road.Skyward they crane their necks and laugh, sometimes they wonder about kings and future kingsand how the muscles peer from their

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Devil Asks Why You Would Mouth The Word Pity

      Jul 1, 2022

      even in this abundance of dark? Even in this abundance of dark you have totake the stars on faith. Look: Under today’s dim sky there is a basket.In that basket there is a fish. Come night, you are the animal that will eat the best parts of it. And ye

      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      All I Know

      Jul 1, 2022

      The Statue of Liberty was packed in crates of lentilsand there is a species of catfish with scalesso tough that piranhas can’t chew throughto red softness. I’m thinking of what is vital,today. The willow tree in my dreams that swaysand a little girl

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Bless Your Soup

      Jan 1, 2022

      I am doing the work of healing.As in:I cry to early-2000s Paula DeAnda.I wash the towels from our apartment.I find your resume onlineand critique it harshly for a ghost audience. I come up with new names for emotions, likeDISLODGED FITTED SHEET orDAM

      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Two Poems

      Jan 1, 2022

      Two Poems
      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Falling Out of Love with Lyric Poetry

      Feb 6, 2024

      Bang out hundreds of pages of rhyming couplets about something other than your identity or your perceptions, and you, too, will likely fall out of love with lyric poetry. The post Falling Out of Love with Lyric Poetry appeared first on The Millions.

      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Three Poems

      Jul 1, 2020

      She was a security guard and even though her uniform was black I could seeIt was covered in blood, the marble floor was covered in blood, it wasSlowly pooling out from the space where HER HAND used to beOh my god, I said, then I started to say, YOUR

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Something About John Coltrane

      Sep 1, 2021

      Something about a tree in shallow sleepListening for what it wants to remember: The note of a seed, its neck sliding throughDirt and its confusion—nothing cleansed Of struggle. The weight lost after death,A confrontation of death. John Coltrane Even

      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Four Poems

      Mar 1, 2022

      When making an axe handlethe pattern is not far off. —Gary Snyder My mother was either horizontal on the couch,or vertical, a plumb line from her spineto the top of her head to the ceiling that spinswhen she drinks, alcohol and an air bubbletrapped,

      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Two Poems

      Mar 1, 2022

      There are not enough hours in the day before I have to perform affection. That’s an objectively robotic thing to say, my therapist tells me, when I speakabout my responses to sentimentality. My weekly battle with the laser printer—a kind of intimacy,

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Five Poems by Max Jacob

      Sep 15, 2018

      In the summer of 1935, the young Elizabeth Bishop, only recently graduated from Vassar College, set out on one of her many voyages. This was a trip to France. After a homesick crossing by ship, she spent a month in the small port of Douarnenez, on th

      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Two Poems

      Nov 1, 2024

      Because today, the leaves of the black walnut tree flicker a new season’s chartreuse,Because the pelts of both my cats gleam with the sheen of cherishment,Because Halloween-cobweb clouds in the blue blue blue blue blue,Because today, the only thing t

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Two Poems

      Jul 1, 2023

      nothing so lonely as the hospitalbed. nothing so lonely as beinglonely in the hospital bed. nothingso jargoned as the body sproutingbrush tuber cannula or rue. nothingso pure as the abstracted by which Imean exploded body, the body thatholds its skin

      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Dark Whispers

      May 1, 2024

      i. We ride horses in the slowly-falling snowand you tell me it is Summer, it is warm,and I don’t quite believe you, but I love you,so I go along with the oddly humorous deception. My mother says “Love is blind”and “Hindsight is 20/20,” but it doesn’t

      12 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Five Poems

      Nov 1, 2023

      There was a family of deer that looked something like us.They traveled far with a fierce sense of collective unity.Held their fearless faces absent of cosmic worry, for the most part.And yet something crept in, making the easiest partof being togethe

      9 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      TheTimeIsNow

      Jun 14, 2023

      Suggested Reading: The Art of Revising Poetry: 21 U.S. Poets on Their Drafts, Craft, and Process (Bloomsbury, June 2023) edited by Charles Finn and Kim Stafford “There has long been a gap in the writing trade,” the editors write in the introduction t

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Five Poems

      Nov 1, 2018

      Moon river, swollen river, river of starholeand bright, harness river, lichen river,river we velvet with our filth.River of butter and river of witches, rivercracked open careful like egg, or burstapart, unleashing its violet load.River mouths, river

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Four Poems

      Mar 1, 2022

      Early such darkness, these oncoming nights& sure, I’m dull & even slow to concedehow mornings make equal, swerving measuresthere between those foremost shadowsalong the fence, amid the chickens & nerve,sheep & their indifference to any pair of foolsh

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Three Poems

      Nov 1, 2023

      for Brenda Shaughnessy The news isn’t good, and neither of us feelslike pretending, though the list of what we hope forgrows longer by the day. More news, goodor otherwise, everything witnessed by the lightof fires, and something we cherished alwaysb

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Silvia Guerra

      Jun 9, 2020

      The dry, black branches of winter seen in flight run singing. Come here to drink translucent drops on fresh leaves. Come over here, and try to light that wick. If you descend from the summit, humming, perhaps I can see you, perhaps at the river’s cur

      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Two Poems

      Mar 15, 2022

      a ghost is hangingfrom the doorpostof our past— can you see it?it has wounds—it’s bleedingyears from its mouth [.] when we left ourhouses that aprilit was for history’s pleasure— twice the war wasin far-flung townsthen it grew a light foot and veered

      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Five Poems

      Nov 1, 2022

      A prayer begins & endseach meeting, it starts with the word God& ends with the word difference. The difference, as far as I can tell,between what is offered & what is possible is a chasm. At times it seemswe simply run out of places to be, until we c

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Think What a Poem Might Do: A Conversation with Jill Bialosky and Matthew Zapruder

      Aug 17, 2017

      What, if anything, do you think poetry can do for us in these difficult times? The post Think What a Poem Might Do: A Conversation with Jill Bialosky and Matthew Zapruder appeared first on The Millions.

      10 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Three Poems

      Mar 1, 2022

      i look like someonehealing from an accidentbecause i am someonehealing from an accidentthe book of actsscales falling from saul’s eyesremembering my capacityfor stillnesshow long can i sitwithout looking awaythe fear of god escapingi desperately need

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Islets/Irritations

    4/5

    2 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Islets/Irritations - Charles Bernstein

      Islets / Irritations

      ISLETS/IRRITATIONS

      Charles Bernstein

      Copyright © 1983 and 1992 by Charles Bernstein.

      All rights reserved.

      Grateful acknowledgement to Jordan Davies who originally published this book and whose design has been carried over into this new edition.

      Cover by Deborah Thomas.

      ISBN: 0-937804-47-9

      Library of Congress Catalog Card No.: 92-80987

      This book was made possible, in part, by a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts.

      Roof Books

      are published by

      Segue Foundation

      303 East 8th Street

      New York, New York 10009

      CONTENTS

      Islets/Irritations

      Cue

      Sprocket Damage

      Lift    Plow    Plates

      Force of Habit

      was, rain, dish

      Staged Marches

      Motion Sickness

      Gradation

      Contradiction Turns to Rivalry

      Parameter

      Neutral Density Filter

      A Question

      Asylum

      Even So

      The Klupzy Girl

      Cedar

      Cover

      The Day Dark Is When You I Cannot See

      Signs of the Particularities

      Nine’s Redaction

      Lapidary Entropy

      Baggage

      Sever

      Looking About

      Substance Abuse

      The Measure

      Celestial Mechanic

      Lode (Mrs. Mao at Gulag)

      Part Quake

      ISLETS/IRRITATIONS

      to proper to        behindless        weigh in a            rotating,

      rectilinear        our plated, embosserie des petits cochons

            pliant feint         insensate, round          bands of immense

      release    fell, a crudity    form of the    assignment—

      increase    by venture    populace animated by    appeal

      to which ends, almonds, lacquered unguents    embrasure    

         matter articulate as trails    percolated, pertinent    

       graceless simulation    beak in otherwise pleasant    up

      and may    this, after    appropriate as to kind of    

      scopes    deadline & partly    muttered    motioned    

        reversal, assume    who certain elsewhere pertain    

      calling the guarded eyelids    lacrimonious discoloration    

           all the more polished    predisposed    making matters

      blemish    shops    sitting out with    brittle tooling    

               tonight, in the state of the long-lent, long-tokened    

           shrugment    languishing piano advisory    lodging,

      larger    plate glass divertimento    mildly fretted    

       ocular disproof    the bleak the black the all too scanned    

              propose, then purpose    porpoise    resilient inventory,

      lackadaisical compliance    pumped of substantiation    

             sense your—raise the exchange    moonstruck destitution    

           the count, which is imposed    or, anyway, of    at

      least briefly    strikes in reply    at least necessarily    

            here the infinitely complex    in, the    patience    

         short, that    it, & then    cushions of soda pop frizzing

      out of all proportion    grandied apples, candied glasses

             insomniac trees    quake and        lips buttoned, voices

      sealed       topiary delights, topological regressions

      current as of        noisome targets       toe tapping tabulation

            exquisitely contoured schmuck       mistrusts what alone

      abjures        indecent confidence        flaunting their contusions

             I describe a square, a parking lot, a battering ram—you

      begin to coast         archeologic tires        rhythms, braces

           awash to climate torque          riding with botanic insufficiency

                indentured savant          flukes & floats       for at least,

      with no more urgency than took to, leading in absolution,

      lost to nomenclature, hardly applicable        incidental curtains

           barometer rises, volition stutters        the gleam, assigned

      to the anterior          triangle of the heart’s lost longing

           infinite impression, unarguable casement         ventriloquizes

      human semblance         the dust of the docks        ardour, departing

      window       empathy that does not outlast car starts

         vacant explosion      the swoosh of the ill-conceived

         major repairs, minor concessions      suitably deplaned

            outage upsurge        out-of-line puckishness       impeccable

      redress, relished resentment        who forever floats, bent

      by the tide, recrystallized, plumb line by billow board,

      marbleized, infraplanetary, belly bound,        dioramas of memory’s

      echo chamber, flatly mesmerizing the woof and warp of the

      screened        barnacled remonstrations, paralyzing half-wants

           inconsequence beleaguered by surreptitious separations

         estimating marsupial planarity          graded remnant in hot

      pursuit       self-congratulating fluorescence        arguably

      inoperative—beats way down, sort of slingshot zoom, replicating

      morons        passionate precepts undermined by falling chairs

              wafers on their way to class       drains of the inaudible

      assembly, jars of consent and stacks of       by interest is

      numbed, the bodiless stare of the oracular preference

        slurping the sums    "my mission was to, I no longer saw

      the …"         hypnonarcolepsy    avuncular tenancy

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1