Language's "thickness"
 

Bernstein 86-7: "The thickness / of words ensures that whatever / of their physicality is erased, or engulfed, in / the process of semantic projection, / a residue / tenaciously in- / heres that will not be subllimated / away. Writing is not a thin film / of expendable substitutions that, when reading, falls / away / like scales / to reveal a meaning."
 
"The thickness of writing between / the reader & the poem is [...] not an obstacle / between them, it is their means / of communication. The thickness of writing, / far from rivaling that of the world, / is on the contrary the sole / means it has to go to the heart of things / by making itself part / of the material world, absorbed / by it."

> from Charles Bernstein's A Poetics (1992)

> tagged with #language

> created Mar 3, 2025 at 7:49:15 AM


> part of unfinished everything


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unfinished everything is an original work / ongoing project (1997-present) by jeremy p. bushnell

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