Bob Perelman
Bob Perelman (born in 1947 in Youngstown, OH)[1] is an American poet, critic, editor and teacher. He is often associated with the Language School group of poets. Perelman is Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania.[2]
Life and work
Bob Perelman's first book Braille, a series of "improvisations" inspired by William Carlos Williams, was published in 1975. His many works since then include The First World (1986), Face Value (1988), Captive Audience (also 1988), and Virtual Reality (1993). In 1999, his selected poems were published under the title Ten to One.
Perelman's critical work often focuses on poetry and modernism and he is the author of several scholarly volumes including The Trouble with Genius (1994) and The Marginalization of Poetry: Language Writing and Literary History (1996). Perelman had been involved in various editing projects, including Writing/Talks (1985), a volume which featured talks given by poets in a series Perelman curated in San Francisco in the 1970s.
Perelman has an M.A. in Classics from the University of Michigan, an M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa, and a Ph.D from the University of California at Berkeley.
Selected publications
Poetry
- Braille, Ithaca House Press (Ithaca, NY), 1975.
- Seven Works, Figures (Berkeley, CA), 1978.
- a.k.a, Tuumba Press (Berkeley, CA), 1979.
- Primer, This Press (San Francisco), 1981.
- To the Reader, Tuumba Press, 1984.
- The First World, Figures (Great Barrington, MA), 1986.
- Face Value, Roof Press (New York), 1988.
- Captive Audience, Figures, 1988.
- Virtual Reality, Roof Press, 1993.
- Ten to One: Selected Poems, Wesleyan University Press (Middletown, CT), 1999.
- Playing Bodies, in collaboration with painter Francie Shaw, (N. Y.: Granary Books, 2003).
- IFLIFE (New York: Roof Books, 2006).
Plays
- The Alps (produced in San Francisco, 1980), published in Hills (Berkeley, CA), 1980.
Non-fiction
- Writing/Talks, Southern Illinois University Press (Carbondale), 1985. (Editor)
- The Trouble with Genius: Reading Pound, Joyce, Stein, and Zukovsky, University of California Press (Berkeley), 1994.
- The marginalization of poetry: Language writing and literary history, Princeton University Press, 1996. ISBN 9780691021386
- (contributor) The Grand Piano: An Experiment in Collective Autobiography. (Detroit, MI: Mode A/This Press, 2006 — ongoing). ISBN 978-0-9790198-0-7
References
External links
- Perelman Author Homepage at Electronic Poetry Center
- Audio-files at PENNSound
- Poems on-line in the DCPoetry Anthology link to three of Perelman's poems: "Postcard Poetics", "Driving to the Philadelphia Poetry Festival at the Free Library", and "Here 2"
- Feature: Bob Perelman at Jacket Magazine
- A discussion of Bob Perelman’s book The Marginalization of Poetry Readings and responses to Perelman’s book by Ron Silliman, Ann Lauterbach, Juliana Spahr, Steve Evans, Bob Perelman, and Kate Lilley, with Perelman’s counter-response.
- The Grand Piano website devoted to the 10 volumes of "Collective Autobiography" by 10 of the so-called "West Coast" group of Language poets, including Perelman, which began serial publication in November 2006.
- The marginalization of poetry: Language writing and literary history at Google Books