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59-591: The term "New Narrative" was first coined in Steve Abbott's magazine Soup . The movement was founded by Robert Glück and Bruce Boone, two poets living in San Francisco in the late 1970s as a reaction and growth from the Language poets . The New Narrative writers began to emerge from a workshop held at Small Press Traffic Bookstore by Robert Glück. New Narrative writings strive to combine a representation of

118-617: A French pseudonymous author (or authors). Upon its release, the book was condemned by American conservative commentator Glenn Beck , who described it as a dangerous radical leftist manifesto . The Coming Insurrection is also known for its association with the legal case of the Tarnac Nine , a group of nine people, including Julien Coupat , who were arrested in Tarnac , rural France, on November 11, 2008, on suspicion of sabotaging French railways. The method of sabotage actually used

177-400: A dialogue between themselves and the readers by directly addressing and engaging the reader in their pieces. The authors also situate themselves in time and space by including pop culture references. Some authors define New Narrative writing by physical space rather than actual writing style, since the movement originated from the physical space in the writing workshops held by Robert Glück in

236-400: A distinct set of concerns. Among the poets are Leslie Scalapino , Madeline Gins , Susan Howe , Lyn Hejinian , Carla Harryman , Rae Armantrout , Jean Day , Hannah Weiner , Tina Darragh , Erica Hunt , Lynne Dreyer , Harryette Mullen , Beverly Dahlen , Johanna Drucker , Abigail Child , and Karen Mac Cormack ; among the magazines HOW/ever , later the e-based journal HOW2 ; and among

295-464: A genre that would embrace those of different identities, specifically one affiliated with the gay, lesbian, and feminist writing encompassed in New Narrative. New Narrative authors make "emotions and the experience of the body" and celebrate the idea of experimenting with prose as a community of writers rather than as individuals, two elements that Language Poetry seems to be lacking. To summarize

354-538: A special issue of Toothpick (1973), as well as Lyn Hejinian 's editing of Tuumba Press, and James Sherry 's editing of Roof magazine also contributed to the development of ideas in language poetry. The first significant collection of language-centered poetics was the article, "The Politics of the Referent," edited by Steve McCaffery for the Toronto-based publication, Open Letter (1977). In an essay from

413-439: A special issue, Schizo-Culture , in the wake of a conference of the same name he had organized two years before at Columbia University. The magazine brought together artists and thinkers such as Gilles Deleuze , Kathy Acker , John Cage , Michel Foucault , Jack Smith , Martine Barrat and Lee Breuer . Schizo-Culture brought out connections between "high theory" and underground culture that had not yet been made, and forged

472-582: A variety of subjects in left-wing politics and culture, there are also commonalities and through-lines among the works. Several of the series' entries address the Financial crisis of 2007–2008 and the consequent protest movements of the early 21st century , particularly Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring ; these are compared by several of the series' authors with the French protests of May 1968 and

531-554: A way of "dislocating thinking." New Narrative strives to challenge the narrative or storytelling status quo in this self-reflexive way. In the introduction to the New Narrative anthology Writers Who Love Too Much: New Narrative 1977-1997, Kevin Killian and Dodie Bellamy write, "founded in the San Francisco poetry scene of the late 1970s, New Narrative responded to post-structuralist quarrels with traditional storytelling practice for reinscribing 'master narrative,' and attempted to open up

590-528: Is also included on Robert Glück's online magazine, Narrativity , and in the published companion Biting the Error: Writers Explore Narrative , edited by Robert Glück, Gail Scott , Mary Burger and Camille Roy. In 2017, Nighboat Books published Writers Who Love Too Much: New Narrative Writing 1977-1997 , an anthology edited by Bellamy and Killian. Language poets The Language poets (or L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets , after

649-514: Is an independent publisher of critical theory , fiction, philosophy , art criticism , activist texts and non-fiction. Founded in 1974, Semiotext(e) began as a journal that emerged from a semiotics reading group led by Sylvère Lotringer at the Columbia University philosophy department. Initially, the magazine was devoted to readings of thinkers like Nietzsche and Saussure . In 1978, Lotringer and his collaborators published

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708-669: The Beat poets, and the San Francisco Renaissance . Language poetry has been a controversial topic in American letters from the 1970s to the present. Even the name has been controversial: while a number of poets and critics have used the name of the journal to refer to the group, many others have chosen to use the term, when they used it at all, without the equals signs . The terms "language writing" and "language-centered writing" are also commonly used, and are perhaps

767-693: The Kootenay school of writing in Vancouver), France , the USSR , Brazil , Finland , Sweden , New Zealand , and Australia . It had a particularly interesting relation to the UK avant-garde : in the 1970s and 1980s there were extensive contacts between American Language poets and veteran UK writers like Tom Raworth and Allen Fisher , or younger figures such as Caroline Bergvall , Maggie O'Sullivan , cris cheek , and Ken Edwards (whose magazine Reality Studios

826-627: The New York School ( John Ashbery , Frank O'Hara , Ted Berrigan ) and Black Mountain School ( Robert Creeley , Charles Olson , and Robert Duncan ) are most recognizable as precursors to the Language poets. Many of these poets used procedural methods based on mathematical sequences and other logical organising devices to structure their poetry. This practice proved highly useful to the language group. The application of process, especially at

885-587: The Poetics , Creative Writing and English Literature departments in prominent universities ( University of Pennsylvania , SUNY Buffalo , Wayne State University , University of California, Berkeley , University of California, San Diego , University of Maine , the Iowa Writers' Workshop ). Language poetry also developed affiliations with literary scenes outside the States, notably England, Canada (through

944-501: The Problem of universals . In many ways, what Language poetry is is still being determined. Most of the poets whose work falls within the bounds of the Language school are still alive and still active contributors. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Language poetry was widely received as a significant movement in innovative poetry in the U.S., a trend accentuated by the fact that some of its leading proponents took up academic posts in

1003-580: The "high/low" aesthetic that remains central to the Semiotext(e) project. As the group dispersed over time, issues appeared less frequently. In 1980, Lotringer began to assemble the Foreign Agents series, a group of "little black books", often culled from longer texts, to polemically debut the work of French theorists to US readers. He was aided in this by Jim Fleming, whose collective press Autonomedia would be Semiotext(e)'s distributor for

1062-543: The 1950s and 1960s, certain groups of poets had followed William Carlos Williams in his use of idiomatic American English rather than what they considered the 'heightened', or overtly poetic language favored by the New Criticism movement. New York School poets like Frank O'Hara and the Black Mountain group emphasized both speech and everyday language in their poetry and poetics. In contrast, some of

1121-692: The 1980s, Semiotext(e) published archival works by or about some of that era's most important artists, including Penny Arcade , Gary Indiana and David Wojnarowicz . Semiotext(e) was invited to participate as an artist in the 2014 Whitney Biennial , for which it produced twenty-eight pamphlets by writers and artists associated with the press. These included "new, commissioned works by Franco “Bifo" Berardi , John Kelsey , Chris Kraus ,  Eileen Myles , Ariana Reines , and Abdellah Taïa , among others, and previously unpublished texts by such influential twentieth-century figures as Simone Weil , Julio Cortazar , and Jean Baudrillard ." Semiotext(e) publishes

1180-1046: The Grand Piano reading series in San Francisco, which was curated by Barrett Watten , Ron Silliman , Tom Mandel , Rae Armantrout , Ted Pearson , Carla Harryman , and Steve Benson at various times. Poets, some of whom have been mentioned above, who were associated with the first wave of Language poetry include: Rae Armantrout , Stephen Rodefer (1940–2015), Steve Benson , Abigail Child , Clark Coolidge , Tina Darragh , Alan Davies , Carla Harryman , P. Inman , Lynne Dryer , Madeline Gins , Michael Gottlieb , Fanny Howe , Susan Howe , Tymoteusz Karpowicz , Jackson Mac Low (1922–2004), Tom Mandel , Bernadette Mayer , Steve McCaffery , Michael Palmer , Ted Pearson , Bob Perelman , Nick Piombino , Peter Seaton (1942–2010), Joan Retallack , Erica Hunt , James Sherry , Jean Day , Kit Robinson , Ted Greenwald , Leslie Scalapino (1944–2010), Diane Ward , Rosmarie Waldrop , and Hannah Weiner (1928–1997). This list accurately reflects

1239-478: The Intervention Series (2009—present), an ongoing series of short books on subjects related to left-wing politics . Topics of the series include anti-capitalism , anti-authoritarianism , post-structuralism , feminism , and economics. All books in the series are designed by Hedi El Kholti. The series is notable for its first installment: The Coming Insurrection by The Invisible Committee ,

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1298-479: The Italian Years of lead . In the context of these protest movements, authors in the series describe a tendency to refuse to seize political power, thus also refusing to engage with states, businesses, and traditional power entities in expected ways. This refusal of power is also described as "destituent". Twentieth-century continental philosophy is frequently cited by the series' authors, particularly

1357-481: The Language poets emphasized metonymy , synecdoche and extreme instances of paratactical structures in their compositions, which, even when employing everyday speech, created a far different texture. The result is often alien and difficult to understand at first glance, which is what Language poetry intends: for the reader to participate in creating the meaning of the poem. Watten's & Grenier's magazine This (and This Press which Watten edited), along with

1416-532: The Language poets includes Eric Selland (also a noted translator of modern Japanese poetry), Lisa Robertson , Juliana Spahr , the Kootenay School poets, conceptual writing , Flarf collectives, and many others. A significant number of women poets, and magazines and anthologies of innovative women's poetry, have been associated with language poetry on both sides of the Atlantic. They often represent

1475-616: The Language school took as their starting point the emphasis on method evident in the modernist tradition, particularly as represented by Gertrude Stein , William Carlos Williams , and Louis Zukofsky . Language poetry is an example of poetic postmodernism . Its immediate postmodern precursors were the New American poets , a term including the New York School , the Objectivist poets , the Black Mountain School ,

1534-530: The Moroccan-born artist and writer who co-founded the now-defunct Dilettante Press , became Semiotext(e)’s art director. As the decade progressed, El Kholti saw a need to re-imagine the Semiotext(e) project beyond the small-format books of the series. Earlier titles would be republished as large-format books within the new History of the Present imprint. In 2004, El Kholti became managing editor of

1593-608: The Native Agents imprint . Kraus worked at the St. Marks Poetry Project and saw an overlap between the theories of subjectivity advanced in the Foreign Agents books and the radical subjectivity practiced by female first-person fiction writers. Designed to promote an anti-memoiristic "public I", the series published Kathy Acker , Barbara Barg , Cookie Mueller , Eileen Myles , David Rattray , Ann Rower, Lynne Tillman and many others. A third series, Active Agents, began in 1993 with

1652-464: The Poets (San Francisco, City Lights, 2001 p.vii) David Meltzer writes: "The language cadres never truly left college. They've always been good students, and now they're excellent teachers. The professionalization and rationalization of poetry in the academy took hold and routinized the teaching and writing of poetry." Later in the volume (p. 128) poet Joanne Kyger comments: "The Language school I felt

1711-459: The San Francisco coffee house of that name, collaborated to write The Grand Piano , "an experiment in collective autobiography" published in ten small volumes. Editing and communication for the collaboration was accomplished over email. Authors of The Grand Piano were Lyn Hejinian , Carla Harryman , Rae Armantrout , Tom Mandel , Ron Silliman , Barrett Watten , Steve Benson , Bob Perelman , Ted Pearson , and Kit Robinson . An eleventh member of

1770-595: The West Coast, an early seed of language poetry was the launch of This magazine, edited by Robert Grenier and Barrett Watten , in 1971. L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E , edited by Bruce Andrews and Charles Bernstein , ran from 1978 to 1982, and was published in New York. It featured poetics, forums on writers in the movement, and themes such as "The Politics of Poetry" and "Reading Stein". Ron Silliman 's poetry newsletter Tottel's (1970–81), Bruce Andrews 's selections in

1829-517: The anthologies Out of Everywhere: Linguistically Innovative Poetry by Women in North America & the UK , edited by Maggie O'Sullivan for Reality Street Editions in London (1996) and Mary Margaret Sloan's Moving Borders: Three Decades of Innovative Writing by Women (Jersey City: Talisman Publishers, 1998). Ten of the Language poets, each of whom at one time curated the reading series at

New Narrative - Misplaced Pages Continue

1888-422: The author as theory-based with a representation of the author as a member of a particular identity without alienating any certain demographic of readers. In New Narrative writing, the author acknowledges being a physical being and confronts sexuality directly. This closeness between writing and writer as a body is also achieved by transgressions that appear in many of the New Narrative authors’ works. Authors create

1947-484: The back of Small Press Traffic Bookstore. The characteristics of New Narrative are determined and explained by members of the movement itself. In his piece Long Note on New Narrative , Robert Glück defines New Narrative writings as possessing the following traits: awareness of physical space, metatext, poetic strategies applied to prose, creating works out of found material of autobiography , and "gossip as legitimate art." In an interview, Gail Scott describes writing as

2006-481: The context of the Mexican Drug War ( Sergio González Rodríguez , Sayak Valencia). Other topics discussed include art history (Gerald Raunig, Chris Kraus ), racism and the criminal justice system ( Houria Bouteldja , Jackie Wang ), continental philosophy ( Jean Baudrillard , Peter Sloterdijk ), and contemporary culture ( François Cusset , Jennifer Doyle , Paul Virilio ). Although the series treats

2065-648: The difference, Dodie Bellamy wrote, "I think of Bob Perelman 's parody of lyric poetry, 'I look out the window and I am deep.' New Narrative, at its worst, would be, 'I have sex and I'm smarter than you.'" In an interview, Kevin Killian said that the New Narrative authors agreed with the Language Poets' ideas of transforming narrative structure, for example, challenging the hierarchical relationship between author and reader, but they thought language poetry lacked "fun." Also, he claimed that Language Poets were more well-versed in theory. While Killian states that one of

2124-514: The differences between Language Poets and New Narrative writers is the Language Poets' knowledge of theory, Glück says that the New Narrative has its inspiration in the theorists Georg Lukács , Walter Benjamin , Louis Althusser , and Georges Bataille . For Killian and other New Narrative writers, the key difference here is more than simply whether or not New Narrative works use theory in general; rather, these New Narrativists are drawing our attention to their distinctly punk means of learning theory in

2183-477: The field to a wider range of subjects and subject positions. It would be a writing prompted not by fiat nor consensus, nor by the totalizing suggestions of the MFA's 'program era,' but by community; it would be unafraid of experiment, unafraid of kitsch, unafraid of sex and gossip and political debate." In "Long Note on New Narrative," Robert Glück says that Language Poetry seemed very "straight male," and he strove to find

2242-774: The first issue of This , Grenier declared: "I HATE SPEECH". Grenier's ironic statement (itself a speech act), and a questioning attitude to the referentiality of language, became central to language poets. Ron Silliman, in the introduction to his anthology In the American Tree, appealed to a number of young U.S. poets who were dissatisfied with the work of the Black Mountain and Beat poets. "I HATE SPEECH" — Robert Grenier The range of poetry published that focused on " language " in This, Tottel's, L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E , and also in several other key publications and essays of

2301-422: The first place. Far from the university campus origins of most LANGUAGE Poetry, New Narrative writers often came into a theoretical and philosophical maturity via the free, open-to-the-public workshops that were something between a book club, a street protest, and a lecture hall. Presses that publish New Narrative writing include Hard Press, Serpent's Tail , Black Star Series, and Semiotext(e) . New Narrative work

2360-428: The high proportion of female poets across the spectrum of the Language writing movement. African-American poets associated with the movement include Hunt, Nathaniel Mackey , and Harryette Mullen . Language poetry emphasizes the reader's role in bringing meaning out of a work. It developed in part in response to what poets considered the uncritical use of expressive lyric sentiment among earlier poetry movements. In

2419-400: The level of the sentence , was to become the basic tenet of language praxis . Stein's influence was related to her own frequent use of language divorced from reference in her own writings. The language poets also drew on the philosophical works of Ludwig Wittgenstein , especially the concepts of language-games , meaning as use, and family resemblance among different uses, as the solution to

New Narrative - Misplaced Pages Continue

2478-401: The magazine L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E , published work by notable Black Mountain poets such as Robert Creeley and Larry Eigner . Silliman considers Language poetry to be a continuation (albeit incorporating a critique) of the earlier movements. Watten has emphasized the discontinuity between the New American poets , whose writing, he argues, privileged self-expression, and the Language poets, who see

2537-564: The magazine of that name) are an avant-garde group or tendency in United States poetry that emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The poets included: Bernadette Mayer , Leslie Scalapino , Stephen Rodefer , Bruce Andrews , Charles Bernstein , Ron Silliman , Barrett Watten , Lyn Hejinian , Tom Mandel , Bob Perelman , Rae Armantrout , Alan Davies , Carla Harryman , Clark Coolidge , Hannah Weiner , Susan Howe , James Sherry , and Tina Darragh . Language poetry emphasizes

2596-463: The most generic terms. None of the poets associated with the tendency has used the equal signs when referring to the writing collectively. Its use in some critical articles can be taken as an indicator of the author's outsider status. There is also debate about whether or not a writer can be called a language poet without being part of that specific coterie; is it a style or is it a group of people? In his introduction to San Francisco Beat: Talking With

2655-437: The next twenty-one years. Jean Baudrillard ’s Simulations was the first of these books to appear, followed by titles by Gilles Deleuze , Felix Guattari , Paul Virilio , Jean-François Lyotard and Michel Foucault , among others. Spin magazine cited the little black books as "Objects of Desire" in a 19XX design feature. In 1990, Chris Kraus proposed a new series of fiction books by American writers, which would become

2714-529: The performance of this new work, and for the development of dialogue and collaboration among poets. Most important were Ear Inn reading series in New York, founded in 1978 by Ted Greenwald and Charles Bernstein and later organized through James Sherry 's Segue Foundation and curated by Mitch Highfill, Jeanne Lance, Andrew Levy, Rob Fitterman, Laynie Brown, Alan Davies, and The Poetry Society of New York ; Folio Books in Washington, D.C., founded by Doug Lang; and

2773-431: The poem as a construction in and of language itself. In contrast, Bernstein has emphasized the expressive possibilities of working with constructed, and even found, language. Gertrude Stein , particularly in her writing after Tender Buttons, and Louis Zukofsky , in his book-length poem A, are the modernist poets who most influenced the Language school. In the postwar period, John Cage , Jackson Mac Low , and poets of

2832-536: The press. He, Kraus and Lotringer then became joint, list-wide co-editors. Semiotext(e)'s new goal was to advance its original conflation of literature and theory, and to expand the anti-bourgeois queer theory presented in early issues of the Semiotext(e) journal. The purview of Native Agents expanded to include science fiction books by Maurice Dantec and Mark von Schlegell and works by writers like Tony Duvert , Pierre Guyotat , Travis Jeppesen , Grisélidis Real , Bruce Benderson , and Abdellah Taïa . Aware that

2891-436: The project, Alan Bernheimer , served as an archivist and contributed one essay on the filmmaker Warren Sonbert . The authors of The Grand Piano sought to reconnect their writing practices and to "recall and contextualize events from the period of the late 1970s." Each volume of The Grand Piano features essays by all ten authors in different sequence; often responding to prompts and problems arising from one another's essays in

2950-521: The publication of Still Black Still Strong by Dhoruba Bin Wahad , Assata Shakur and Mumia Abu-Jamal , with the goal of presenting explicitly political, topical material. It has also published texts by Kate Zambreno , Bruce Hainley , and Eileen Myles . In 2001 Semiotext(e) changed its base of operations from New York to Los Angeles, ceasing its involvement with Autonomedia to begin an ongoing distribution arrangement with MIT Press . Hedi El Kholti ,

3009-438: The reader's role in bringing meaning out of a work. It plays down expression, seeing the poem as a construction in and of language itself. In more theoretical terms, it challenges the " natural " presence of a speaker behind the text; and emphasizes the disjunction and the materiality of the signifier . These poets favor prose poetry , especially in longer and non- narrative forms. In developing their poetics , members of

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3068-444: The series. Some poets, such as Norman Finkelstein , have stressed their own ambiguous relationship to "Language poetry", even after decades of fruitful engagement. Finkelstein, in a discussion with Mark Scroggins about The Grand Piano , points to a "risk" when previously marginalized poets try to write their own literary histories, "not the least of which is a self-regard bordering on narcissism". Semiotext(e) Semiotext(e)

3127-568: The theorists he introduced in the 1980s had by now been absorbed into the academic mainstream, Sylvère Lotringer turned his attention to Italy's post- Autonomia critical theory , commissioning and publishing works by Franco 'Bifo' Berardi , Paolo Virno , Antonio Negri , Christian Marazzi [fr] , Maurizio Lazzarato and others. Semiotext(e) also became the English-language publisher for Peter Sloterdijk ’s notable Spheres trilogy . Re-visioning New York's ‘last avant-garde ’ of

3186-431: The time, established the field of discussion that would emerge as Language (or L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E) poetry. During the 1970s, a number of magazines published poets who would become associated with the Language movement. These included A Hundred Posters (edited by Alan Davies ), Big Deal, Dog City, Hills, Là Bas, MIAM, Oculist Witnesses, QU, and Roof. Poetics Journal , which published writings in poetics and

3245-452: The work of Deleuze and Guattari , Michel Foucault , and Giorgio Agamben . Several of the series' authors decry the state of exception , a legal theory attributed to the German jurist Carl Schmitt (and later criticized and further theorized by Agamben as well as Achille Mbembe ), which posits that the state has authority to act outside the rule of law in extreme circumstances (e.g.

3304-557: Was a kind of an alienating intellectualization of the energies of poetry. It carried it away from the source. It may have been a housecleaning from confessional poetry, but I found it a sterilization of poetry." Online writing samples of many language poets can be found on internet sites, including blogs and sites maintained by authors and through gateways such as the Electronic Poetry Center , PennSound , and UbuWeb . The movement has been highly decentralized. On

3363-637: Was edited by Lyn Hejinian and Barrett Watten , appeared from 1982 to 1998. Significant early gatherings of Language writing included Bruce Andrews's selection in Toothpick (1973); Silliman's selection "The Dwelling Place: 9 Poets" in Alcheringa, (1975), and Charles Bernstein's "A Language Sampler," in The Paris Review (1982). Certain poetry reading series, especially in New York, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, were important venues for

3422-445: Was instrumental in the transatlantic dialogue between American and UK avant-garde s). Other writers, such as J.H. Prynne and those associated with the so-called "Cambridge" poetry scene ( Rod Mengham , Douglas Oliver , Peter Riley ) were perhaps more skeptical about language poetry and its associated polemics and theoretical documents, though Geoff Ward wrote a book about the phenomenon. A second generation of poets influenced by

3481-531: Was similar to one suggested in the book, and members of the group were suspected to be members of the Invisible Committee. Coupat later co-founded Tiqqun , a short-lived philosophical magazine whose work is also represented in the Intervention Series. Major topics of the series include French anarchism (The Invisible Committee, Tiqqun ), Italian Marxist economic criticism ( Maurizio Lazzarato , Franco Berardi , Christian Marazzi ) and violence in

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