Charles Bernstein's latest Jacket2 commentary post takes a new look at a fascinating old recording from our archives. The story starts more than thirty years ago: "From September 29 to October 1, 1989, the Literary Center at Royaumont, outside Paris, put on the first conference devoted to the American Objectivist poets." Organized by Emmanuel Hocquard and Rémy Hourcade, the symposium featured a formidable array of poets and commentators including Bernstein, Michael Davidson, Lyn Hejinian, Michael Palmer, Stephen Rodefer, and David Bromige, along with Carl Rakosi — who, Bernstein notes, "seem[ed] startled to be the last surving member of a grouping about which he had often tenuous connections." He also laments that "[Lorine] Niedecker was not officially featured in the program, a regrettable omission that was often noted at the event."
Bernstein's recollection continues: "Fall 1989 was my first semester teaching at Buffalo — as a visiting professor. I flew direct from Buffalo to Paris for the event, which was a magnificent tribute to the these poets. It's remarkable that these four great Second Wave modernist Jewish American poets received the first grand tribute of this kind in France, not in the US." A ninety-minute recording of Bernstein's talk, with a lavish introduction by Hocquard and live translation ("with commentary!") by Pierre Alferi has been a part of the PennSound archives since 2013. The same talk, "after several more years of work [...] became 'Reznikoff’s Nearness' (first published in Sulfur and later collected in My Way)," but the version we're highlighting today is the transcribed version of the original conference presentation, first published in Notes #3 in June 1990. You can read that iteration here.
Bernstein's recollection continues: "Fall 1989 was my first semester teaching at Buffalo — as a visiting professor. I flew direct from Buffalo to Paris for the event, which was a magnificent tribute to the these poets. It's remarkable that these four great Second Wave modernist Jewish American poets received the first grand tribute of this kind in France, not in the US." A ninety-minute recording of Bernstein's talk, with a lavish introduction by Hocquard and live translation ("with commentary!") by Pierre Alferi has been a part of the PennSound archives since 2013. The same talk, "after several more years of work [...] became 'Reznikoff’s Nearness' (first published in Sulfur and later collected in My Way)," but the version we're highlighting today is the transcribed version of the original conference presentation, first published in Notes #3 in June 1990. You can read that iteration here.
