A companion to the critically acclaimed My Way his 1999 montage of essaysconversations and poems <strong>With Strings</strong> catapults Charles Bernstein into ... » 

A companion to the critically acclaimed My Way his 1999 montage of essaysconversations and poems With Strings catapults Charles Bernstein into thefuture of American poetry. A compilation of sixtynine poems in various formsand styles dating mostly from the 1990s With Strings is his most buoyantcollection to date. With its fractured nursery rhymes distressed mottoesruncible riddles and inscrutable sayings Bernstein takes us on a poetic tripthat swerves from the comic to the political from the whimsical to theelegiac. The whole presents a densely sounded echo chamber in which a range ofthemes moods and perceptions extend and reverberate.Charles Bernstein is perhaps best known as one of the founders of theLANGUAGE poetry movement of the 1970s. He remains one of Americasliveliest advocates and practitioners of radically inventive poetry. The titleof his new collection With Strings suggests the lush arrangement of amusical work as well as the unacknowledged implications of our everydayagreements. Just as language binds us together with its associated meaningsWith Strings bounces against the ties that rend us apart as they fasten ustogether. From his samplings of everyday life to his demented yet sonorousiambic beats Bernstein has once again created a poetry of our time for ourtime and by our time. «