In the American tree

by Ron Silliman (editor)

Poetry. The Language Poets have extended the Pound-Williams tradition in American writing into new and unexpected territories, ultimately establishing themselves as the most radically experimental avant-garde on the current literary scene. This second edition anthology features the most substantial body of work by the Language Poets now available, as well as with 130 pages of theoretic statements by the poets themselves. The poets represented include Barrett Watten, Lyn Hejinian, Clark Coolidge, Susan Howe, and Bernadette Mayer, among many others.

Genres: Poetry, Anthologies

611 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1986

About the author

Ron Silliman has written and edited 30 books to date, most recently articipating in the multi-volume collaborative autobiography, The Grand Piano. Between 1979 & 2004, Silliman wrote a single poem, entitled The Alphabet. In addition to Woundwood, a part of VOG, volumes published thus far from that project have included ABC, Demo to Ink, Jones, Lit, Manifest, N/O, Paradise, (R), Toner, What and Xing. The University of Alabama Press will publish the entire work as a single volume in 2008. Silliman has now begun writing a new poem entitled Universe.

Silliman was the 2006 Poet Laureate of the Blogosphere, a 2003 Literary Fellow of the National Endowment for the Arts and was a 2002 Fellow of the Pennsylvania Arts Council as well as a Pew Fellow in the Arts in 1998. He lives in Chester County, Pennsylvania, with his wife and two sons, and works as a market analyst in the computer industry.

Reviews

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

...in rejecting a speech-based poetics and consciously raising the issue of reference, to suggest that any new direction would require poets to look (in some ways for the first time) at what a poem is actually made of - not images, not voice, not characters or plot, all of which appear on paper, or in one's mouth, only through the invocation of a specific medium, language itself.

- Language, Realism, Poetry, Ron Silliman

In the tree of American poetics, there is a branch known as Language poetry. In the American Tree collects those poets who belong to the early canon of poets who practice language-based forms of poetry, including: Robert Grenier, Barrett Watten, Lyn Hejinian, Jean Day, David Melnick, Kit Robinson, Rae Armantrout, Carla Harryman, Michael Davidson, Charles Bernstein, P. Inman, Susan Howe, Michael Gottlieb, Fanny Howe, John Mason, Ray DiPalma, and Ted Greenwald (among others)...

the clouds
of the summer
before

by extension to
the clouds
of the following

summer

and who for
the chair

who for
the beer

the doghouse
of the following
summer

don't
give it a
second

thought like

where's
the dog

- Striped Canvas, Robert Grenier, pg. 19

*

I
The world is complete.
Books demand limits.

II
Things fall down to create drama.
The materials are proof.

III
Daylight accumulates in photos.
Bright hands substitute for sun.

IV
Crumbling supports undermine houses.
Connoisseurs locate stress.

V
Work breaks down to devices.
All features present.

VI
Necessary commonplaces form a word.
The elements of art are fixed.

VII
A mountain cannot be a picture.
Rapture stands in for style.

VIII
Worn-out words are invented.
We read daylight in books.

IX
Construction turns back in on itself.
Dogs have to be whipped.

X
Eyes open wide to see spots.
Explanations are given on demand.

XI
Brick buildings shut down in winter.
A monument works to change scale.

XII
False notes work on a staircase.
The hammer is as large as the sun.

[...]

- Complete Thought, Barrett Watten, pg. 40-41

*

pandemonium hews
no clouds

wakefulness
is active

one is a statistic
an ideal of exhaustiveness
it meets this precise redundant limbo

stars of keyholes
laud the rain cloud

shapes sloshing
off an awkward clay

a sea that only scatters
in a halfbox

the gloss of observation
in the dark

the soundds are in the ears
a prima ragged brio

mute water crashes rise
in a cloud

- Lyn Hejinian, pg. 63

*

Ay chinga!
Bright sun shines.
God appears.
Down in front!

I want to put
This word here.
The mind at
Its shuffle.

I want to
Hear this word.
Dull person,
Fish fish, water.

- God, BP, pg. 71

*

After this conversation have another
hill, high meadow, stream there. Then
squat in a chair, this V a vector to that smoke
across from the Chevron station.

Where there is pause, rush in.
If a taxi gives kosher jelly, schmaltz.
Your friend is a member of the US Labor Party. Even so,
without sticking your head out the window

sound is. It is possible to go from A to B
and not get trapped. Try being a moorhen or Jane Austen
Think how it will look when you are really more.
When traffic resumes, it's not night anywhere.

Okay a moment. I have a meadow.
The unit is a comet of meaning as is gas, a glass of milk.
Slow as this instrument is, the labor of parts
makes matter apart from us and money.

The number 13. Swallow a ball of wax
to see how important you are. For the first
few hours the air seems perfumed. Then utterance
throws in, where the modern lake should have been.

- Gas, Jean Day, pg. 84

*

1.

thoeisu

thoiea

akcorn woi cirtus locqvump

icgja

cvmwoflux

epaosieusl

cirtus locquvmp

a nex macheisoa

- from Pcoet, David Melnick, pg. 90

*

bottle-neck
oh I'd
humor my
behemoth!
tales
take
powder
pills
set sea
ordinarily
arbitrary
time of arrival
estimated as
The Channel
"The World's Greatest Assortment!"
ORANGE RICE
ATLANTIC OCEAN
The Novel
part of a trilogy
after an episode
based on fact
of Dante's Inferno
in London
in 1920
& so
snow falls
deep snow
further off
the train passes
behind a red temple
in the interval
is a correspondence
like across an arc
triumphant tranquil
mechanical take
all round
on the roofs

- Tribute to Nervous, Kit Robinson, pg. 119

*

Leaves fritter.

Teased edges.

It's vacillation that pleases.

Who answers for
the 'whole being?'

This is
only the firing

* * *

Daffy runs across
the synapses, hooting
in mock terror.

Then he's shown
on an embankment, watching
the noisy impulse pass.

* * *

But there's always a steady hum
shaped like a room
whose door much lead to
what really

where 'really'
is a nervous
tic as regular

* * *

as as as as

the corner repeats itself

* * *

Dull frond:
giant lizard tongue
stuck out
in the murky distance
sight slides off
as a tiny elf.

* * *

Patients are asked to picture
health as an unobstructed
hall or tube

through which Goofy now tumbles:
Dumb Luck!

Unimagined
creature scans postcard.

* * *

Conclusions can be drawn.

Shadows add depth
by falling

while deep secrets
are superseded -

quaint.

Exhaling
on second thought

- Single Most, Rae Armantrout, pg. 155-156

*

'The period between the hyphen of marriage is best forgotten," said her uncle, salivating at the gate of that boundless menagerie primed with a moral shape which is framed to break down on approach to vivid fact. The property was neglected. A label peeled away from a jar in a city under cloudless skies. Anybody in the centre of the meadow where the cows stand still, where rivers spit and salt subdues the perspicacity of skin with humdrum metabolic flowering diminishing the general regard for this miscellaneous Hector while staring at one's own face through a deserving mirror, night hold to her bosom the happy halting view of this interesting case.

- Property, Carla Harryman, pg. 173

*

All five of them
(including Mr. Rubenstein)
lost forever, their boat
made out of the same
lousy plastic.

- Brahms, Michael Davidson, pg. 200

*

graphemic
hinges
discourse
re-ordering
SIGNS
of
few little
whch
speed &
wh.
inter-sentential
connexions
there's
splendid
"here too"
in
not forced
stuff
the rest of
piecemeal
spins off
"ethical"
intrude
wiTh tHaT kiNd oF
schizophallic
categories
enfolding
a proper place
fix(ist)
opting for a
* * * * *
so find
isn't
TURN
face to a
inevitable
picturesque
baulk
DESIRE
token by
topology": the
se e
"OR"
verfrumsdungseffect
autonomous explosions
taste as
blocks, circling
like (star), fl...m...n...g...
aire, leap-
as if we had
not gleaned
in a "possible"
vectorate
these: the
issued
, canopy
as scratch (rune
potential a
s...n...r...ty
the pull
"buckle me"
with a...pAt
"i leap up"
sights
"iDeaLLy"
being (?)
"happens"
nOt sParTaN
: polish(s) (ed)
1 1
TO FACE
ou///eg///t///
am (visit, subdue, impulse)
h...l...r...ty

- ST. McC., Charles Bernstein, pg. 282-284

*

thru drees, load dickening, keith
all occliffed, plinther, intos thaggle, instance
ilm deodr, mudxeast, paean ximv,'s
another handsome attack, gline leverage, bsidb
tuned full simple

- from Ochre, P. Inman, pg. 339

*

He plodded away through drifts of i

ce

away into inapprehensible Peace

A portable altar strapped on his back

pure and severe

In the forests of Germany he will feed

on aromatic grass and browse in leaves

- from Pythagorean silence, Susan Howe, pg. 355

*

1.

F O C K E - W U L F S
c a l l o w
H E L L I N G
s c r e e d
H E A D -
W O U N D S
s w a b
R A V E - U P S
a r b o r e a l
C O N V E N T I C L E S
s l e d g e s
T U M B L E D T O
' n a r r a t i v i s t '


2.

D O N O T
C R U I S E T H E
H E L P
f i b -
r i l l a t i o n
R E C O M B I N A N T
d o r e é
g u e s s e d
B L A N C H I N G
" p h r a s e y "
U T T E R D E L U S I O N
t h e c r o w d s
S H O R I N G
m o r e i n k
f o r t h e m

- from Fourteen Poems, Michael Gottlieb, pg. 377

*

"Alot of sky litters my view of home - oh
split part, lost."
Helium balloons spill off the horizon
& knock her backwards
Jealousy'd be too easy "I miss
a better sentiment, ballooning pride
could accomplish." Homesick
for each hand, they miss the fragrance
of their labors in them.

[...]

- Alsace-Lorraine, Fanny Howe, pg. 401

*

human beings? i call them human borings
said the dog, hungrily
the police siren
growling in the street
as i moved about the house (empty)
in search of your footprints
the house "bare as your thigh"
(last night you said
"funny you should be ticklish there"
between balls and ass
"the emptiest part of your body")
plants and papers get in my way
want to know everyone but i'm lazy
arranging the pillow spilled
coffee on some dollar bills hung
them up to dry the police are such
cub scouts i needed a friend
"has it ever occurred to you that maybe
x doesn't like you?"
the birds tall as grass
some with skunkheads
bathe in the dogdish
the dog whines at the door
now from outside

- John Mason, pg. 409

*

Above the tracks
a slight embank-
ment. Limestone.
Mud. Weeds. A
concrete wall
three feet high
stretches as far
as the eye can
see. Then the
traffic on the
boulevard. Homes.

Below. An iron
meadow. Tar
soaked timber.
Cans. Small
stones. More
weeds at the
back of the
filling sta-
tion near the
track's edge.

To the left
two ware-
houses. Win-
dows broken.
One wall gone.
A staircase
dangles like
the torn wall-
paper above it.
Two women eat
from a paper
bag in its shadow.

To the right
a long ramp
to a viaduct
carries the
traffic over
the boulevard.

- Exile, Ray DiPalma, pg. 449-450

*

Experience a table of
Contentment Thumb
Through a continental
Drift index Break in
The open another case
on skid would converse

Obviously not enough
Place starts to allow de-
Cay to mean a thing to
Anybody Great cold wea-
There feeling Whether in-
Side or outside bucket

Straighten out Follow
For awhile Bounce Ounce
Off nouns While announc-
Ing for bouncing Gossip
Sip capsule swallowed
Swollen pull wool over

Temper imply temperment
By taking temperature A-
Long comes the answer to
Everybody's dream No
Fantasy life worth speak
Easy ing about Sharing

Spit Shoulders Live long
Day enough to spend gotten
A job bath Once-a-mon-
Th-what-a-crowd even-
Ing phobes bot wet sand
Carry streets in litters

[...]

- from Word of Mouth, Ted Greenwald, pg. 468

[TQ-tip Shandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of the best word/language poets. Gets better with every reading.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

i read this a long time ago, in its original edition. the three stars work like this: its a great way to approach language poetry because it will give you a good sense of the amazingly beautiful heights and nauseatingly sordid depths that language poets are capable of. if that was the purpose of the selections it would get five stars. but since ol' ron seems to think these are all good poems, it only gets a 'c'.

i should probably cave and pick up the new edition. an ex stole my old one. wanker.

[John McElhenney · Rating 5 out of 5]

L A N G U A G E poetry.

Silliman is the master and one of the instigators of this odd poetic theme.

Example: (I just used the example and colon device to tell you what I think) this review was written a few seconds ago when I thought it up.

So that was my attempt to illustrate. The idea is that the language ::::: punctuation, and TyPiNG can all be part of the poem. This seems rather appropriate when applied to internet and txt language.

This is a collection of practitioners.

[Paul Belbusti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent collection of "Language Poetry," a term that becomes increasingly meaningless as you notice these writers have little in common with each other.