What do you think?
Rate this book
Girly Man
After 9/11, postmodernism and irony were declared dead. Charles Bernstein here proves them alive and well in poems elegiac, defiant, and resilient to the point of approaching song. Heir to the democratic and poetic sensibilities of Walt Whitman and Allen Ginsberg, Bernstein has always crafted verse that responds to its historical moment, but no previous collection of his poems so specifically addresses the events of its time as Girly Man, whichfeatures works written on the evening of September 11, 2001, and in response to the war in Iraq. Here, Bernstein speaks out, combining self-deprecating humor with incisive philosophical and political thinking.
Composed of works of very different forms and moods—etchings from moments of acute crisis, comic excursions, formal excavations, confrontations with the cultural illogics of contemporary political consciousness—the poems work as an ensemble, each part contributing something necessary to an unrealizable and unrepresentable whole. Indeed, representation—and related claims to truth and moral certainty—is an active concern throughout the book. The poems of Girly Man may be oblique, satiric, or elusive, but their sense is emphatic. Indeed, Bernstein’s poetry performsits ideas so that they can be experienced as well as understood.
A passionate defense of contingency, resistance, and multiplicity, Girly Man is a provocative and aesthetically challenging collection of radical verse from one of America’s most controversial poets.
Composed of works of very different forms and moods—etchings from moments of acute crisis, comic excursions, formal excavations, confrontations with the cultural illogics of contemporary political consciousness—the poems work as an ensemble, each part contributing something necessary to an unrealizable and unrepresentable whole. Indeed, representation—and related claims to truth and moral certainty—is an active concern throughout the book. The poems of Girly Man may be oblique, satiric, or elusive, but their sense is emphatic. Indeed, Bernstein’s poetry performsits ideas so that they can be experienced as well as understood.
A passionate defense of contingency, resistance, and multiplicity, Girly Man is a provocative and aesthetically challenging collection of radical verse from one of America’s most controversial poets.
194 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
About the author
Charles Bernstein
163 books71 followersCharles Bernstein 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 poets (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.
Bernstein's highly anticipated new work, All the Whisky in Heaven, will be published in Spring 2010 by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. Also to be released in the upcoming year is a Companion to Charles Bernstein, which will be published by Salt Publishing, the winner of the prestigious 2008 Nielsen Innovation of the Year award.
Bernstein's highly anticipated new work, All the Whisky in Heaven, will be published in Spring 2010 by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. Also to be released in the upcoming year is a Companion to Charles Bernstein, which will be published by Salt Publishing, the winner of the prestigious 2008 Nielsen Innovation of the Year award.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
February 4, 2020
Čini se se svima pomalo smučila autopoetika, ali ovde kod Bernstajna ona je začuđujuće sveža i žilava. Čovek se ne da i neusiljeno družbuje sa paradoksima, inspirišući na stvaralaštvo.
Teško je izdvojiti o čemu je ova zbirka, ne zato što je samodopadljiva i autoautoreferencijalna, već naprotiv jer je krcata temama. Ideje kipe u Bernstinovom kazančetu, a čitalac skuplja dolazeću penu, a forma njenih mehurića izuzetno je šarolika. Pesme kao: spiskovi, pisma, fragmenti, (pseudo)prevodi, uroborosi-razbrajalice, komentari slika, aforizmi, testovi. (Ponegde čak ima i rime, mada rima u takvom ukruženju deluje uvek otužno autoironično.) U njihovim okvirima najupečatljivija su mi tri momenta: Amerika nakon bombardovanja 9/11 (zanimljivo je što se spominje prepiska sa prijateljima iz Beograda vezane za bombardovanje 99’ – kako posredovano iskustvo postaje neposredno – gola koža kao ograda utisaka), L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E jezičke igrarije i odnos prema sinu kao skrivenoj pesničkoj figuri. (Kad sam već kod sina (Feliks se zove), odavno nisam gledao nešto tako uznemirjuće na Jutjubu kao njegove kratke umetničke forme, koje postaju jedno od „drevnih” snimaka ovog sajta – najstariji je objavljen pre 12 godina.)
I ako bih morao kratko, najkraće da objasnim Bernstina, rekao bih – Vitgenštajn osnovnoškolac u poseti Pertiniju.
+ Neki fini momenti:
Sve što postoji, postoji da bi se završilo kao opera.
Poezija je opera bez priče, kostima
Da jezik može da govori, odbili bismo da ga razumemo.
Avangarda nije predstraža već komšiluk.
Teško je izdvojiti o čemu je ova zbirka, ne zato što je samodopadljiva i autoautoreferencijalna, već naprotiv jer je krcata temama. Ideje kipe u Bernstinovom kazančetu, a čitalac skuplja dolazeću penu, a forma njenih mehurića izuzetno je šarolika. Pesme kao: spiskovi, pisma, fragmenti, (pseudo)prevodi, uroborosi-razbrajalice, komentari slika, aforizmi, testovi. (Ponegde čak ima i rime, mada rima u takvom ukruženju deluje uvek otužno autoironično.) U njihovim okvirima najupečatljivija su mi tri momenta: Amerika nakon bombardovanja 9/11 (zanimljivo je što se spominje prepiska sa prijateljima iz Beograda vezane za bombardovanje 99’ – kako posredovano iskustvo postaje neposredno – gola koža kao ograda utisaka), L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E jezičke igrarije i odnos prema sinu kao skrivenoj pesničkoj figuri. (Kad sam već kod sina (Feliks se zove), odavno nisam gledao nešto tako uznemirjuće na Jutjubu kao njegove kratke umetničke forme, koje postaju jedno od „drevnih” snimaka ovog sajta – najstariji je objavljen pre 12 godina.)
I ako bih morao kratko, najkraće da objasnim Bernstina, rekao bih – Vitgenštajn osnovnoškolac u poseti Pertiniju.
+ Neki fini momenti:
Sve što postoji, postoji da bi se završilo kao opera.
Poezija je opera bez priče, kostima
Da jezik može da govori, odbili bismo da ga razumemo.
Avangarda nije predstraža već komšiluk.
August 8, 2026
I found this to be a quite juvenile book--not necessarily in a bad way but in the sense of growing up into the adult world and feeling grappling with the expectation to speak and decide things for yourself instead of just being told what to do. Maybe Boyish Man would be a better title--I don't know how much gender is at play here, seems to be more a question of age.
The stakes are presented very explicitly at the beginning in the 9/11 diaries. Bernstein and the rest of his Manhattan/American world have been shocked out of normalcy and he's looking for a way to reconcile the horror and suffering of the attack with his own critiques of imperialist America and complacent bourgeois life. I think. Because we don't get a lot of the latter until later. But this is indicated early on by his going to the only non-flag-toting Afghani restaurant, talking about occupying ourselves, BATTLE OF ALGIERS, etc. But there's always "but x; but y; but z", and Bernstein states that he feels the need to be "trying to formulate arguments". So we're on this line of maturity and self-awareness and the need to decide posed by 9/11, but also we're not sure what we think yet, we haven't come up with the right argument or the right political stance yet... There is certainly an age component--take the title poem addressed to Bernstein's son, or just the goofy language throughout. Maybe that's unconvincing. My main issue with the book is that it rarely inhabits its adolescence/insecurity in a way that is poetically productive--that is, by working out the feeling of uncertainty, which is a boat moved by the budding undercurrent of desire; by letting itself create and shape the image of the thing it desires (but which it can't yet picture, and it is this inability to picture that is one of youth's proper fecundities).
Sometimes it does succeed in this; I think "Further Color Notes" is a positive example of what the spirit behind this book could have been; the impulse to correction being applied iteratively in a way that generates a broader general motion that then indicates the object that was desired, even if the editor didn't know it at first (here, Orange). Something else that it could have been is more like "Pomegranates" where we are hovering on the line between repeating learned things, rote cause-effects and world facts, and on the other hand feeling things out for yourself; and he also develops this "x for the x" motif on pg 93 which I like, and recurs elsewhere in different forms (there's "x is x" somewhere too). "Comforting Thoughts" is also an example of this, being a little goofy and a little lessons-learned but also nevertheless feeling something.
But a lot of the book feels like smarmy holden caulfield or a mere speculative progressivism that is ultimately very liberal. There's no shortage of cringe-inducing lines, especially early on, e.g.:
I know Bernstein's a boomer but this is such gen X cringe to me. Same with how he writes in the "Letter from New York"; "You see, I've never ... The problem is not so much the x; y is not to be preferred. No, the..." He definitely does not seem to be playing a character in this note signed "Charles" which closes with the isolated line... "Or did I just imagine it?".
Bernstein says and shows that he feels the need to say something, but his attempts to say it are mostly gestural. The opening poem "In Particular" makes an implicit contrast of, on the one hand, a neutral framing pair--the black man/woman waiting at a bus stop, the white woman/man sitting on a stool--who symmetrically open and close the poem and, on the other hand, all of the figures that come between with their goofy silly funny alliterations and rhymes. It's hard to come away from this poem without feeling like the final two lines are a sort of closing-out, a harkening back to the beginning of the poem that implicitly separates it out from the innards, from the "Nicaraguan pee-wee with a preposterous pipe" and the "Iraqi contemplating hari-kari". The black/white woman/man at the bus stop/stool don't rhyme, don't alliterate, don't call attention to themselves. The fact of their repetition at the end takes away from the grouping-together of the rest of the poem, and instead makes these two figures feel like the neutral, even normative surveyors. But Bernstein certainly seems to have an idea about writing a poem that seeks to neutralize difference--it just doesn't feel like something fully inhabited.
Poems like "Why I Don't Meditate" or "Slap Me Five, Cleo, Mark's History" feel like refusals to think, in the face of the normative expectation to be thoughtful. Which is obviously not in itself a criticism. But Bernstein doesn't inhabit the sort of enfant terrible persona fully that would liberate him to say these poems full-chestedly. So they come off as hand-wringy. The whole book is sort of hand-wringing. Just like "Why I Don't Meditate" feels like an adolescent reacting to the pressure to be healthy with a refusal to consider it, but then also not being committed to that refusal and kind of cringing at his own decision, "War Stories" and "There's Beauty in the Sound..." come off as Bernstein having nothing to say about America and war but still feeling like he has to make a statement on them. Like, seriously, an 'America is bad because we eat fast food and go to Disney' poem in the 2000s is kind of pitiful and just makes it seem, again, like you don't really have any new felt thoughts about war/America but still wanted to see your name in print, or something. I had more positive examples of what I liked about this book but I'm now finishing typing this book after reading another of Bernstein's books that frustrated me even more so I'm not feeling like I want to type those parts up just to prove to no one that I'm not a hater. Send!
The stakes are presented very explicitly at the beginning in the 9/11 diaries. Bernstein and the rest of his Manhattan/American world have been shocked out of normalcy and he's looking for a way to reconcile the horror and suffering of the attack with his own critiques of imperialist America and complacent bourgeois life. I think. Because we don't get a lot of the latter until later. But this is indicated early on by his going to the only non-flag-toting Afghani restaurant, talking about occupying ourselves, BATTLE OF ALGIERS, etc. But there's always "but x; but y; but z", and Bernstein states that he feels the need to be "trying to formulate arguments". So we're on this line of maturity and self-awareness and the need to decide posed by 9/11, but also we're not sure what we think yet, we haven't come up with the right argument or the right political stance yet... There is certainly an age component--take the title poem addressed to Bernstein's son, or just the goofy language throughout. Maybe that's unconvincing. My main issue with the book is that it rarely inhabits its adolescence/insecurity in a way that is poetically productive--that is, by working out the feeling of uncertainty, which is a boat moved by the budding undercurrent of desire; by letting itself create and shape the image of the thing it desires (but which it can't yet picture, and it is this inability to picture that is one of youth's proper fecundities).
Sometimes it does succeed in this; I think "Further Color Notes" is a positive example of what the spirit behind this book could have been; the impulse to correction being applied iteratively in a way that generates a broader general motion that then indicates the object that was desired, even if the editor didn't know it at first (here, Orange). Something else that it could have been is more like "Pomegranates" where we are hovering on the line between repeating learned things, rote cause-effects and world facts, and on the other hand feeling things out for yourself; and he also develops this "x for the x" motif on pg 93 which I like, and recurs elsewhere in different forms (there's "x is x" somewhere too). "Comforting Thoughts" is also an example of this, being a little goofy and a little lessons-learned but also nevertheless feeling something.
But a lot of the book feels like smarmy holden caulfield or a mere speculative progressivism that is ultimately very liberal. There's no shortage of cringe-inducing lines, especially early on, e.g.:
...What are you fighting for? The sirens
cry wolf to the obedient masses who sway,
hysterical, in synch to the boys
on the back streets and the ladies of mourning. (47)
I know Bernstein's a boomer but this is such gen X cringe to me. Same with how he writes in the "Letter from New York"; "You see, I've never ... The problem is not so much the x; y is not to be preferred. No, the..." He definitely does not seem to be playing a character in this note signed "Charles" which closes with the isolated line... "Or did I just imagine it?".
Bernstein says and shows that he feels the need to say something, but his attempts to say it are mostly gestural. The opening poem "In Particular" makes an implicit contrast of, on the one hand, a neutral framing pair--the black man/woman waiting at a bus stop, the white woman/man sitting on a stool--who symmetrically open and close the poem and, on the other hand, all of the figures that come between with their goofy silly funny alliterations and rhymes. It's hard to come away from this poem without feeling like the final two lines are a sort of closing-out, a harkening back to the beginning of the poem that implicitly separates it out from the innards, from the "Nicaraguan pee-wee with a preposterous pipe" and the "Iraqi contemplating hari-kari". The black/white woman/man at the bus stop/stool don't rhyme, don't alliterate, don't call attention to themselves. The fact of their repetition at the end takes away from the grouping-together of the rest of the poem, and instead makes these two figures feel like the neutral, even normative surveyors. But Bernstein certainly seems to have an idea about writing a poem that seeks to neutralize difference--it just doesn't feel like something fully inhabited.
Poems like "Why I Don't Meditate" or "Slap Me Five, Cleo, Mark's History" feel like refusals to think, in the face of the normative expectation to be thoughtful. Which is obviously not in itself a criticism. But Bernstein doesn't inhabit the sort of enfant terrible persona fully that would liberate him to say these poems full-chestedly. So they come off as hand-wringy. The whole book is sort of hand-wringing. Just like "Why I Don't Meditate" feels like an adolescent reacting to the pressure to be healthy with a refusal to consider it, but then also not being committed to that refusal and kind of cringing at his own decision, "War Stories" and "There's Beauty in the Sound..." come off as Bernstein having nothing to say about America and war but still feeling like he has to make a statement on them. Like, seriously, an 'America is bad because we eat fast food and go to Disney' poem in the 2000s is kind of pitiful and just makes it seem, again, like you don't really have any new felt thoughts about war/America but still wanted to see your name in print, or something. I had more positive examples of what I liked about this book but I'm now finishing typing this book after reading another of Bernstein's books that frustrated me even more so I'm not feeling like I want to type those parts up just to prove to no one that I'm not a hater. Send!
May 17, 2016
Girly Man is the kind of poetry the world still needs. In this anthology of collected works, Bernstein captures the conundrum of masculinity in the age of terror, the quandary of avant-garde literature without a direction, and the seemingly unnecessary value of art and poetry. In one poignant section, he writes prose-poems about living in Manhattan in September 2001 with grace, immediacy, and honesty that transports you to the most influential week of this century. He makes the case for taking pleasure in life's beauty, in having honor in appreciating that beauty, and persevering even when it seems like there is nothing to do and nowhere to go. It's an illuminating, inspirational, disciplined attempt to give some music and meaning to times that seem so utterly meaningless. Not to be missed for anyone with an interest in contemporary American poetry.
December 28, 2007
His best in a long time. While Bernstein's most public statements of poetics and politics haven't changed much since about 1980, his writing has again managed to exceed itself here, actualizing the dizzying variety only suggested in his criticism. The direct and the opaque, the moving and the hilarious, all coexist here in an urgent unsettledness. It may also be the first book I've read of his that contains explicitly political poetry. In any case, Bernstein's refusal to settle on a style was always one of my favorite things about him, and I'd been disappointed by his previous two collections, feeling like they read as rote reiterations of some favorite sour/comic tropes. Here he's back in full swing. Reading Girly Man reminded me of why I love Charles Bernstein.
October 31, 2010
Charles Bernstein is a badass. Girly Man is the funniest poetry I've read in a while, and when I finished the collection I found myself asking and answering some interesting questions:
1. What is the point of poetry? Is it really just pretentious crap?
2. What exactly is a L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poet?
3. What is Bernstein trying to say about the media?
When I woke up the next morning after reading this, I was like, "damn. I feel hungover. I guess I had too much to think last night." BAM.
1. What is the point of poetry? Is it really just pretentious crap?
2. What exactly is a L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poet?
3. What is Bernstein trying to say about the media?
When I woke up the next morning after reading this, I was like, "damn. I feel hungover. I guess I had too much to think last night." BAM.
July 20, 2016
I have a lot to say about this collection, but for now I'll just copy two of my favorite lines from the poem "Sign Under Test": "If language could talk we would refuse to understand it. / Hue is a property of optics not objects." I'll also drop a few of the book's key topics: modern/postmodernism, post-9/11 America, the role of art in society, the value of perspective, irony and sincerity, stylistic repetition, and authorship and interpretation. A real good read.
June 9, 2007
Bernstein is in top form. The influence of revolutionary poetics is apparent now across the internet, film, television and literature. Bernstein is without a doubt a fundamental contributor to these evolutions, and this book should not be missed.
April 18, 2010
actually downloaded a pdf version from gigapedia, seems to have got a lot of the poems in all the whiskey in heaven, the new selected from FSG. love how sincere and childlike it is. boyish man.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews