Charles Bernstein's libretto for Shadowtime is now out from Green
Integer, in time for the American premiere of the Brian Ferneyhough
opera, at Lincoln Center Festival, on July 21 and 22. He is the author
of 30 books of poetry and libretti, including With Strings (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2001), Republics of Reality: 1975-1995
(Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 2000) and World on Fire (Nomados,
2004). He has published two books of essays and one essay/poem
collection: My Way: Speeches and Poems (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1999); A Poetics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992);
Content's Dream: Essays 1975 (Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 1986,
1994; reprinted by Northwestern University Press, 2001). He is also the
co-author of A Conversation with David Antin (New York: Granary Books,
2002).
Bernstein is editor of 99 Poets/1999: An International Poetics
Symposium, a special issue of boundary 2; Close Listening: Poetry and
the Performed Word (Oxford University Press, 1998), The Politics of
Poetic Form: Poetry and Public Policy (New York: Roof Books, 1990) and
Live at the Ear (Pittsburgh: Elemenope Productions, 1994), an audio
poetry anthology. He is host and co-producer of LINEbreak, a radio
poetry series. With Bruce Andrews, he edited L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, which has
been anthologized as The L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Book (Carbondale: Southern
Illinois University Press, 1984). With Phillip Foss, Bernstein edited
Patterns / Contexts / Time (Tyuonyi, 1990). Bernstein has also edited
two other collections of poetry: "Language Sampler" in Paris Review,
No. 86 (1982) and 43 Poets (1984) in Boundary 2 (1986).
Bernstein is Regan Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania.
From 1989 to 1993, he was David Gray Professor of Poetry and Letters at
the State University of New York at Buffalo and Director of the Poetics
Poetics Program; in 2002, he was appointed SUNY Distinguished
Professor. He has been writer-in-residence or visiting faculty at
Columbia University, Princeton University, Brown University, Temple
University, Bard College, the New School for Social Research, Queens
College, and the University of California at San Diego.
He is the Executive Editor, and co-founder, of The Electronic Poetry
Center (epc.buffalo.edu) and co-editor, with Al Filreis, of PENNsound.
He is coeditor, with Hank Lazer, of Modern and Contemporary Poetics, a
book series from the University of Alabama Press (1998 - ), has served
the Executive Committee of the Poetry Division of MLA, and serves on
the board of the Richard Foreman's Ontological Hysteric Theater,
boundary 2, Chain, Sibila ((São Paolo), the Arizona Quarterly Review
(Tucson), and the executive committee of the MLA Discussion Group for
the Bibliography and Textual Studies.
Bernstein has written five librettos: Blind Witness News, The Subject:
A Psychiatric Opera and The Lenny Paschen Show, with composer Ben
Yarmolinsky, and Cafe Buffe, now being composed by Dean Drummond.
Shadowtime, on the work of Walter Benjamin, was written for composer
Brian Ferneyhough and premiered in May 2004 at the Munich Biennale; in
2004 it played at the Fesitival d'Automne in Paris and in 2005 at the
Lincoln Center Festival.
He has collaborated with Richard Tuttle on a poem/sculpture and an
essay/poem on Tuttle's work, and collaborated with Susan Bee on several
artists books. In 2002, he curated Poetry Plastique, with Jay Sanders,
at the Marianne Boesky gallery and coedited the catalog.
Since the mid-1970s, Bernstein's poems have been published in over 350
literary magazines in North America and his essays have been published
in over 150 periodicals. In addition, about 25 interviews have been
published in the U.S. and abroad, primarily in periodicals.
His poetry and essays have appeared in translation well over one
hundred anthologies and periodicals in Mexico, Argentina, Cuba, Brazil,
Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Italy, France, Germany, Austria,
Serbia, Montenegro, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Russia, China, Korea, and
Japan.
Over 400 essays and reviews on the work have been published in TLS, PN
Review, Critical Inquiry, The Nation, The American Book Review, The
American Poetry Review, The Michigan Quarterly, Contemporary
Literature, The Missouri Review, American Poetry, Jacket, MLN, Poetics
Today, Harvard Book Review, and numerous other journals and books.
He has given over 250 featured readings and over 200 lectures/talks
over the past 30 years, throughout the world, including France,
Finland, Denmark, Italy, Portugal, The Czech Republic, Germany,
Austria, Serbia, Spain, Canada, Cuba, Brazil, England, New Zealand, and
the U.S.
Anthology appearances include The Norton Anthology of Poetry, The
Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry, Great American
Prose Poems: From Poe to the Present, Best American Poetry 1992, 2002,
and 2004, The Longman Anthology of Poetry,, Short Fuse: The Global
Anthology of New Fusion Poetry, An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary
Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their, The Norton Anthology of Jewish
American Literature, The Body Electric: The Best Poetry from The
American Poetry Review, 1972-1999, The Norton Introduction to
Literature, The Norton Introduction to Poetry, Poems for the
Millennium, From the Other Side of the Century: A New American Poetry
1960-1990, Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology, Language
Poetries, In the American Tree, Up Late: American Poetry Since 1970.
In 2002, Bernstein was appointed State University of New York
Distinguished Professor, the university's highest rank.At Penn, he
received the Dean's Award for Innovsation in Teaching in 2005.
Prizes include: The 1999 Roy Harvey Pearce / Archive for New Poetry
Prize of the University of California, San Diego (established in 1995,
the Pearce Prize is awarded biennially to an American poet-scholar in
recognition of his or her distinguished lifetime contributions to
poetry and literary scholarship). Fellowships include: New York
Foundation for the Arts Poetry Fellowship in 1995 and 1990, University
of Auckland Foundation Fellowship (1986), the John Simon Guggenheim
Memorial Fellowship (1985), the National Endowment for the Arts
Creative Writing Fellowship (1980), and the William Lyon McKenzie King
Fellowship (at Simon Fraser University) (1973)
From the early 70s to the late 80s, he worked as a writer/editor on
healthcare and medical topics, with a break to serve as Associate
Director of the CETA Artists Project (the largest postwar American
public employment program for artists).
Charles Bernstein was born April 4, 1950 in New York City. He attended
the Bronx High School of Science and Harvard College, from which he
graduated in 1972. He is married to the painter, Susan Bee, and has two
children: Emma and Felix.
