After 911 postmodernism and irony were declared dead. Charles Bernstein hereproves them alive and well in poems elegiac defiant and resilient to thepoint of app... » 

After 911 postmodernism and irony were declared dead. Charles Bernstein hereproves them alive and well in poems elegiac defiant and resilient to thepoint of approaching song. Heir to the democratic and poetic sensibilities ofWalt Whitman and Allen Ginsberg Bernstein has always crafted verse thatresponds to its historical moment but no previous collection of his poems sospecifically addresses the events of its time as Girly Man which featuresworks written on the evening of September 11 2001 and in response to the warin Iraq. Here Bernstein speaks out combining selfdeprecating humor withincisive philosophical and political thinking.Composed of works of very different forms and moodsetchings from moments ofacute crisis comic excursions formal excavations confrontations with thecultural illogics of contemporary political consciousnessthe poems work as anensemble each part contributing something necessary to an unrealizable andunrepresentable whole. Indeed representationand related claims to truth andmoral certaintyis an active concern throughout the book. The poems of GirlyMan may be oblique satiric or elusive but their sense is emphatic. IndeedBernsteins poetry performs its ideas so that they can be experienced as wellas understood.A passionate defense of contingency resistance and multiplicity Girly Manis a provocative and aesthetically challenging collection of radical versefrom one of Americas most controversial poets. «