Bernstein, 33, in footnote: "In a recent interview Perelman was careful to put off the suggestion that because his poems do not employ causal unity (are not "little short stories"), they are therefore not coherent. 'China,' a work in The First World, 'coheres grammatically, thematically, politically in terms of tone. It's certainly not something that throws you off the track, like playing trains as a kid, whipping from side to side until someone falls off--it's not that."
Bernstein notes, however, that the "image of a train flipping the tracks is precisely a description of the effect of the antiabsorptive on reading" (he is a defender of the antiabsorptive, so perhaps this is a place where Bernstein and Perelman diverge?)