Editing Language poets (section)

{{Short description|Group of avant-garde American poets}}
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{{more citations needed|date = April 2014}}

The '''Language poets''' (or '''[[L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E (magazine)|''L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E'']] poets''', after the magazine of that name) are an [[avant-garde]] group or tendency in [[United States poetry]] that emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The poets included: [[Bernadette Mayer]], [[Leslie Scalapino]], [[Stephen Rodefer]], [[Bruce Andrews]], [[Charles Bernstein (poet)|Charles Bernstein]], [[Ron Silliman]], [[Barrett Watten]], [[Lyn Hejinian]], [[Tom Mandel (poet)|Tom Mandel]], [[Bob Perelman]], [[Rae Armantrout]], [[Alan Davies (poet)|Alan Davies]], [[Carla Harryman]], [[Clark Coolidge]], [[Hannah Weiner]], [[Susan Howe]], [[James Sherry (poet)|James Sherry]], and [[Tina Darragh]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Mind Your Language |url=https://forward.com/culture/135413/mind-your-language/ |website=Forward |access-date=26 March 2021}}</ref>

Language poetry emphasizes the reader's role in bringing meaning out of a work. It plays down expression, seeing the poem as a construction in and of language itself. In more theoretical terms, it challenges the "[[nature|natural]]" presence of a speaker behind the text; and emphasizes the [[disjunction]] and the [[Substance theory|materiality]] of the [[Sign (linguistics)|signifier]].<ref name="Kaoirala">Saroj Koirala (2016), "[https://www.nepjol.info/index.php/TUJ/article/view/25968 Linking Words with the World: The Language Poetry Mission]", ''Tribhuvan University Journal'', vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 175-190; here: p. 179. {{doi|10.3126/tuj.v29i1.25968}}. Retrieved 2020-04-11.</ref> These poets favor [[prose poetry]], especially in longer and non-[[narrative]] forms.<ref name="Kaoirala"/>

In developing their [[poetics]], members of the Language school took as their starting point the emphasis on method evident in the [[modernist poetry|modernist]] tradition, particularly as represented by [[Gertrude Stein]], [[William Carlos Williams]], and [[Louis Zukofsky]]. Language poetry is an example of poetic [[postmodernism]]. Its immediate postmodern precursors were the [[The New American Poetry 1945-1960|New American poets]], a term including the [[New York School (art)|New York School]], the [[Objectivist poets]], the [[Black Mountain poets|Black Mountain School]], the [[Beat generation|Beat]] poets, and the [[San Francisco Renaissance]].

Language poetry has been a [[controversy|controversial topic]] in American [[Literature|letters]] from the 1970s to the present. Even the name has been controversial: while a number of poets and critics have used the name of the journal to refer to the group, many others have chosen to use the term, when they used it at all, without the [[equals sign]]s. The terms "language writing" and "language-centered writing" are also commonly used, and are perhaps the most generic terms. None of the poets associated with the tendency has used the equal signs when referring to the writing collectively. Its use in some critical articles can be taken as an indicator of the author's outsider status.<ref>Michael Greer (Winter/Spring 1989). "Ideology and Theory in Recent Experimental Writing or, the Naming of 'Language Poetry'", ''boundary 2'', vol. 16, no. 2/3, pp. 335–355. See also: [[Bob Perelman]], ''The Marginalization of Poetry;'' [[Lyn Hejinian]], ''The Language of Inquiry;'' [[Barrett Watten]], ''The Constructivist Moment;'' [[Ron Silliman]], ''The New Sentence''; and [[Charles Bernstein (poet)|Charles Bernstein]], ''My Way: Speeches and Poems.''</ref> There is also debate about whether or not a writer can be called a language poet without being part of that specific coterie; is it a style or is it a group of people?  In his introduction to ''San Francisco Beat:  Talking With the Poets'' (San Francisco, City Lights, 2001 p.vii) David Meltzer writes:  "The language cadres never truly left college.  They've always been good students, and now they're excellent teachers.  The professionalization and rationalization of poetry in the academy took hold and routinized the teaching and writing of poetry."  Later in the volume (p. 128) poet Joanne Kyger comments:  "The Language school I felt was a kind of an alienating intellectualization of the energies of poetry.  It carried it away from the source.  It may have been a housecleaning from confessional poetry, but I found it a sterilization of poetry."  

Online writing samples of many language poets can be found on internet sites, including blogs and sites maintained by authors and through gateways such as the [[Electronic Poetry Center]], [[PennSound]], and [[UbuWeb]].