Charles Bernstein, award-winning poet and essayist considered by many critics to be one of the major literary theorists of his generation, is David Gray Chair of Poetry and Letters.

He has been a member of the UB faculty since 1990.

Your work as a poet, critic and essayist has received much acclaim from those in your field, but is little understood by the rest of us. What is "language" poetry?
The name comes from L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, a magazine I edited with Bruce Andrews from 1978 to 1981. In the magazine, we focused on contemporary poetry and poetics that was not conventionally representational, something that is perhaps more familiar to some in terms of painting (at least in the period from Picasso to Jackson Pollock) than in terms of writing.

What is it about contemporary poetry-"language poetry," etc.-that makes it seem so inaccessible to the average reader?
The major problem may simply be a lack of familiarity with it. Any art form with which one has no familiarity will seem difficult. For me, the most interesting poetry does things with words that cannot be done in any other medium. Some of the poems I like may at first seem strange to someone who primarily reads straightforward narratives, whether fiction or nonfiction. If you try to read these poems as if there is a message to be extracted, or as if they are telling a story, or as if they are describing a scene, then you are likely to be frustrated. It's not a question of extracting information but of attending to mood, style, vocabulary, structure and syntax. It's as if you are trying to use DOS commands in a Windows environment and you keep typing "click" at the command window rather than entering into the operating environment.

In playing with language and meaning, what is the best thing you've learned?
Poetry can be playful and much of mine is; however, meaning is not a game with fixed rules. Words mean many more things than we intend when we try to control what they say. Poetry's a way to tap into that linguistic and sonic richness, both for the pleasure of the activity and to explore how language shapes our ways of perceiving the world. Language is as much a probe for discovery as a way of capturing the already known.

What is it about this work that intrigues you so much and has led to your devotion to new poets using new literary forms?
So much contemporary culture is made to be easily consumed and readily disposed. The obsession with simplifying everything pervades not only mass culture, but also education and journalism. Complexity and difficulty are too readily frowned upon and that means our level of public-but also private-discourse is disturbingly limited. The problem is that the emphasis on the accessible often produces very bland art that may be high on moral or emotional sentiment but lacks an intellectual and aesthetic and ethical intensity. Besides, "unpopular" art can be the most fun and also the most enthralling.

How should we as readers approach these new forms of expression?
With open ears. Listening for sounds and textures and rhythms and tones and turns and tumbles before asking what it's "about." It may be about about, or around about, or beside itself and then some. A good introduction would be LINEbreak, a radio series of half-hour readings and interviews I did with about 30 poets and novelists, which was broadcast last year on WBFO and other stations. The whole series is available in Real Audio on the Web at the Electronic Poetry Center .

What is so unusual about the UB Poetics Program?
What makes our program unique is that we have a core group of poets and fiction writers who teach literature at the graduate and undergraduate level. At most universities, literary artists teach creative writing, but at UB there has been a 30-year tradition of having poets teach what I like to call creative reading. Presently, our core faculty consists of Robert Creeley, Susan Howe, Dennis Tedlock and myself-and in the Fall I am thrilled that Samuel R. Delany will be joining us. Raymond Federman has been for me a crucial presence in the program, so I greeted word of his retirement from UB with sadness, though I expect he will continue to give readings and talks at UB. But focusing on the faculty misses what really makes the Poetics Program work-and that is our remarkable graduate students. The Poetics Program is especially designed to allow poets to work as literary scholars, while at the same time providing a forum for their continuing development as artists. The goal of the program is to produce graduates who are well-suited to teach both writing and literature classes, and who are capable of combining aspects of the scholarly and artistic approaches in their critical writing and their teaching. This approach has produced poets and scholars who are having a welcome and necessary influence on the field of literary studies. I'm glad to see that some of the most interesting younger American poet-scholars have UB Ph.D.s, including Juliana Spahr, Jena Osman, Elizabeth Willis, Peter Gizzi and Mark Wallace-and I should add Ben Friedlander and Yunte Huang, who are just completing their degrees.

When you consider asking a poet to read here, what do you look for?
While I coordinate Wednesdays at 4 Plus, the writers are selected by all core faculty of the Poetics Program and we also consider suggestions by the graduate students in the Poetics Program. We try to pick writers whose work is relevant to our classes and who are not only able to read their work, but also to meet with students. The key to the series is that it is student-centered. Before each of the readings, the guests meet with a class of undergraduates who have read at least one of their recent books. The undergraduates also attend the readings. For many UB undergraduates, this is the first chance they have had to meet with poets and fiction writers and to attend literary readings. Taking poetry out of a book and putting it into performance is a crucial dimension for appreciating literature-and not just of the present, because the same lessons can be applied to older writing. And getting to meet writers and hear them talk about their background and their work tends to personalize what for many students may seem a very distant occupation. We also arrange for the visitors to meet with one of our graduate poetics seminars. This can be as rewarding for the visiting writers as for the students.

What's on this spring's Wednesday at 4 Plus schedule that someone new to this subject shouldn't miss?
The schedule is posted at the EPC and listed in the Reporter week by week. I don't think it's so important which reading one goes to-but just to start to go to poetry (and prose) readings in the way one would go to concerts or movies or sports events. So why not start with the next one, on Feb. 24 at 4 p.m. in the Center for the Arts Screening Room-Joanne Kyger and Ben Friedlander.

What question do you wish I had asked, and how would you have answered it?
Where can you get poetry books in Buffalo? We are very fortunate in having one of the very best literary bookstores in the U.S.: Talking Leaves Books (across from the South Campus). I consider Talking Leaves an integral part of our Poetics Program and am grateful for their support of poetry and of the writers we bring to town.