Controlling Interests
()
About this ebook
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
The Politics of Poetic Form: Poetry and Public Policy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sophist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Near/Miss Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Recalculating Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pitch of Poetry Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Radical Poetics and Secular Jewish Culture Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Transpoetic Exchange: Haroldo de Campos, Octavio Paz, and Other Multiversal Dialogues Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Way: Speeches and Poems Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Attack of the Difficult Poems: Essays and Inventions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Girly Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Objectivist Nexus: Essays in Cultural Poetics Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Reading the Difficulties: Dialogues with Contemporary American Innovative Poetry Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIslets/Irritations Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Topsy-Turvy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingspoetic license / poetic justice: a footnote to "the london march" by david antin, with a commentary by charles bernstein Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Controlling Interests
Related ebooks
Concrete and Wild Carrot Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hosts and Guests: Poems Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5N/O Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Common Sense Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Islets/Irritations Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Areas Lights Heights Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSignage Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSally's Hair: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Three Bell Zero Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIs Music: New and Selected Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOf Silence and Song Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Sleep That Changed Everything Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5wild horses Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCriss Cross Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsArcheophonics Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Address Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5In the Middle of Nowhere Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Circling the Canon, Volume II: The Selected Book Reviews of Marjorie Perloff,1995-2017 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Front Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWreading: A Poetics of Awareness, or How Do We Know What We Know? Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Day at the Beach Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5No Object Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Age of Reasons: Uncollected Poems 1969–1982 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Taking Measures: Selected Serial Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTopsy-Turvy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHeresy and the Ideal: On Contemporary Poetry Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Pierce the Skin: Selected Poems, 1982-2007 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On the Shores of Welcome Home Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEmporium Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Intangibles Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Poetry For You
The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Odyssey: (The Stephen Mitchell Translation) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Inward Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tao Te Ching: A New English Version Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Prophet Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Daily Stoic: A Daily Journal On Meditation, Stoicism, Wisdom and Philosophy to Improve Your Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dante's Inferno: The Divine Comedy, Book One Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dante's Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad: The Fitzgerald Translation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beowulf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad of Homer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5For colored girls who have considered suicide/When the rainbow is enuf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Love Her Wild: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Way Forward Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dream Work Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bedtime Stories for Grown-ups Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gilgamesh: A New English Version Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Selected Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond Thoughts: An Exploration Of Who We Are Beyond Our Minds Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Leaves of Grass: 1855 Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Twenty love poems and a song of despair Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Tradition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Edgar Allan Poe: The Complete Collection Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (ReadOn Classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Letters to a Young Poet (Rediscovered Books): With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related categories
Reviews for Controlling Interests
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Controlling Interests - Charles Bernstein
Interests
MATTERS OF POLICY
On a broad plain in a universe of
anterooms, making signals in the dark, you
fall down on your waistband &, carrying your
own plate, a last serving, set out for
another glimpse of a gaze. In a room
full of kids splintering like gas jets against
shadows of tropical taxis—he really had, I
should be sorry, I think this is the ("I
know I have complained
I am quite well"
quit nudging
)—croissants
outshine absinthe as "la plus, plus sans
egal" though what I most care about
is another sip of my Pepsi-Cola. Miners
tell me about the day, like a pack of
cards, her girlfriend split for Toronto. By
the ocean, gripped in such an
embrace—these were blizzard
conditions & no time for gliding—
she promised to keep in touch. The ice
floes, at this point we had already floated
far past our original sightings, made for a
pretty picture but mostly nobody payed attention.
The next best thing, New York draft, my
own opinion, the National Express, no
doubt, no luck, next election, next
month…. Together, though not always in the
same degree, with a sense of their
unworthiness & admiration as to the number
that are wonderfully changed without any
motive, view, design, desire, or principle of
action. "How much is there, in particular,
in the things which have been observed."
"How lovely did these principles render him
a life." Next session, several occasions,
seems to say, thanking you for, so there will
be a, that is my—. At last the soup
is piping hot, the decks swashed, all appurtenances
brushed aside. Across the parking lot you
can still hear the desultory voices of the men
chatting about the dreary affaires de la monde
that they seem to find so interesting. You
take some white flowers out of the vase, the
one you postured that you no longer cared about
but which is as close to your heart as
that chair from which you wistfully stare
at the charming floral tableau, & bring
them into the kitchen where you fix yourself a
bowl of ice cream. It was as close as
that. With a heart chilling suddenness,
the ground itself vibrating rhythmically to
your various aversions, a man pushes a
wheelbarrow full of fruit around the curve
just out-of-view. Canned peas kept frozen
out of an intense confusion &, greatly moved
by such things, a kind of light without heat,
a head stored with notions & speculations,
with a cold & unaffected disposition, as on the
one hand there must sometimes be. "If the
great things of religion are rightly understood,
they will affect the heart." Still, what an absurd
figure a poor weak man makes who in
a thunder storm goes against the flashes of
lightning with sword in hand. "No vision of
loveliness could have touched me as deeply
as this sad sight." In the summer
blackouts crippled the city & in the winter
snowstorms: & yet the spirit of
the place—a certain je ne sais quoi that
lurks, like the miles of subway tunnels, electrical
conduits, & sewage ducts, far below the surface—
perseveres. Green leather chairs are easily
forgotten just as the bath water brings
only minor entertainment. But we have
higher hopes. Let me just for a minute
recount the present standings. There is
no more white chocolate & the
banks are on holiday in Jamaica. All
the cigarettes have already been lit &
the mountains climbed & the chills
gotten over. It is the end of the
line. Even nostalgia has been used up &
the moths have been busy making their way
through all your very favorite attire. True,
there are still some loose ends, last minute
details that will never really be completed,
but in the main there is nothing left to
do. All the guests have gone home & the
dishes are done. The telephone is off the
hook. It is written that the wisdom
of the wise will be destroyed &
the understanding of the prudent will be
brought to nothing. & so it becomes