Attack of the Difficult Poems
Essays and Inventions
- Contents
- Review Quotes

I. Professing Poetics
The Difficult Poem
A Blow Is Like an Instrument: The Poetic Imaginary and Curricular Practices
Against National Poetry Month as Such
Invention Follies
Creative Wreading & Aesthetic Judgment
Wreading, Writing, Wresponding
Anything Goes
Our Americas: New Worlds Still in Progress
The Practice of Poetics
II. The Art of Immemorability
Every Which Way but Loose
The Art of Immemorability
Making Audio Visible: Poetry’s Coming Digital Presence
The Bound Listener
Hearing Voices
Objectivist Blues: Scoring Speech in Second Wave Modernist Poetry and Lyrics
III. The Fate of the Aesthetic
McGann Agonist
Poetry and/or the Sacred
The Art and Practice of the Ordinary
Electronic Pies in the Poetry Skies
Poetry Plastique: A Verbal Explosion in the Art Factory (with Jay Sanders)
Speed the Movie or Speed the Brand Name or Aren’t You the Kind That Tells
Breaking the Translation Curtain: The Homophonic Sublime
Fraud’s Phantoms: A Brief Yet Unreliable Account of Fighting Fraud with Fraud
Fulcrum Interview
Radical Jewish Culture / Secular Jewish Practice
Poetry Scene Investigation: A Conversation with Marjorie Perloff
Is Art Criticism Fifty Years Behind Poetry?
Poetry Bailout Will Restore Confidence of Readers
IV. Recantorium
Recantorium (a bachelor machine, after Duchamp after Kafka)
“A superb poet and great inventor of poetry, Charles Bernstein dazzlingly invents the essay for poetry: professing in a gorilla suit and white tuxedo.”
“This is a smart and invigorating book that triumphantly demonstrates Charles Bernstein’s goals and values. Those who want satire, those who want earnest discussion, those who want information, those who want to get a sense of personality, those who want theory, those who want entertainment, even those who wish to be confirmed in their beliefs and those who wish to nurse their resentments, will all find something here.”
“I regret to inform you that Charles Bernstein’s Attack of the Difficult Poems is highly unsuitable (not suitable) for National Poetry Month. Not suitable for acceptance by the publications of the Modern Language Association or its affiliate, the Annual Convention. Not suitable for readers under the age of five. Not suitable for endorsement by the ParisReview. Not suitable for your average television sitcom. Not suitable for tenure. Not suitable for free distribution. Not suitable for variations in the ontological condition. Not suitable for readers of generic poetry. Not suitable for the MFA. For everyone else: priceless.”
"Bernstein, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a remarkably prolific author, essayist and critic, not only defends difficult poems in this collection of essays, but also poetry in general, both as a reader and as a practitioner. In prose that is unconventional and often very funny, he comments as well on the state of the humanities, teaching, translation, the history of language media and the connections between poetry and visual art."
"Charles Bernstein’s new book has arrived from Chicago University Press, at my London address, enveloped in several stiff boxes like some kind of rare document. This book, Attack of the Difficult Poems, is a must-have, must-read, for every practicing poet in Britain and Ireland. They should buy their copies online today. This may involve wasting money. But it will be worth it."
Literature and Literary Criticism: General Criticism and Critical Theory
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