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Charles Bernstein
A conceptual introduction:

1. In poetry, they talk about finding your voice, which is too often a way of evading the voices to be found in the writing.

2. Not only do I consider works of official verse culture to be poetry (which is not, for me, an honorific category), but also one of the key features of official verse culture [is] that it could necessarily include some poetry that I like quite a lot.

3. I prefer minerals to insects but I have been working on this with my ontologist.

4. As an alternative to National Poetry Month, I propose that we have an International Anti-Poetry Month. As part of the activities, all verse in public places will be covered over--from the Statue of Liberty to the friezes on many of our government buildings...Parents will be asked not to read Mother Goose...Religious institutions will have to forego reading verse passages from the liturgy...with hymns strictly banned...No vocal music will be played on the radio or sung in concert halls. Children will have to stop playing all slapping and counting and singing games and stick to board games and football.

5. Oddly, it is a form of dissent these days to hold out that art that doesn't get the market share can actually be as valuable as the art that does....I'm for the ketchup that loses the race.

6. Attention: Write down everything you hear for one hour.

7. There is still a great deal of conceptualizing that leads up to any intuition.



Bio:

Charles Bernstein is the author of 39 books, ranging from large-scale collections of poetry and essays to pamphlets, libretti, translations, and collaborations. Recent full-length works of poetry include Girly Man (University of Chicago Press, 2006), With Strings (University of Chicago Press, 2001), and Republics of Reality: 1975-1995 (Sun & Moon Press, 2000). Bernstein is Donald T. Regan Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania. He is the co-founder and co-editor, with Al Filreis, of PENNsound; and editor, and co-founder, with Loss Pequenño Glazier, of The Electronic Poetry Center. He is coeditor, with Hank Lazer, of Modern and Contemporary Poetics, a book series from the University of Alabama Press (1998 - ). In 2006, Bernstein was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Conceptual Poetry and Its Others Symposium is made possible by grants from the Arizona Humanities Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Poets & Writers. We are also grateful for Symposium support from the Arizona Inn; College of Humanities; Book Stop Used Books, and Friends of the Poetry Center, especially Helen S. Schaefer.