Poet Charles Bernstein’s latest collection of essays, Attack of the Difficult Poems, gathers some of his most memorable and irreverent work. It also laments the task of the language maker and seeks creativity’s source. In a career spanning 35 years and 40 books, Bernstein has provoked us with writing that straddles the tensions between ordinary and poetic language, and between everyday life and its adversaries. In 1995, Bernstein cofounded the Electronic Poetry Center, one of the earliest and most sophisticated models for digital poetry resources on the Web. He is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and cofounder and coeditor of PENNsound, an extensive archive of recorded poetry. This program touches on poetry and technology, and it features Bernstein reading his work.

This program is presented in partnership with the Poetry Foundation and the University of Chicago Press.

Recorded Sunday, November 13, 2011 at the Poetry Foundation.