Bob Perelman

Bob Perelman (born in 1947) 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.

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.

elected 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.
* "The Trouble with Genius: Reading Pound, Joyce, Stein, and Zukofsky", University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 1994.
* "The Marginalization of Poetry: Language Writings and Literary History", Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 1996.
* "The Future of Memory", Segue Foundation, 1998.
* "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

*(Editor) "Writing/Talks", Southern Illinois University Press (Carbondale), 1985.
*"The Trouble with Genius: Reading Pound, Joyce, Stein, and Zukovsky", University of California Press (Berkeley), 1994.
*(contributor) "The Grand Piano: An Experiment in Collective Autobiography." (Detroit, MI: Mode A/This Press, 2006 — ongoing). ISBN 978-0-9790198-0-X

Interviews

*With Nagy Rashwan and Nicholas Zurbrugg, " [http://www.poetry.org The Electronic Poetry Review] "(#4, October, 2002,)
*With Peter Nicholls, "Textual Practice", Sussex, UK (Vol. 12, N0. 3,Winter 1998).
*With Toh Hsien-Min, "The Reader", Oxford (1988);
*Jacket Magazine (Vol. 16, March 2002, [http://jacketmagazine.com/16/perelman-toh.html link here] ).
*With Deanna Ferguson, "Boo", Vancouver (No. 6, 1996).

External links

* [http://www.writing.upenn.edu/pepc/authors/perelman/ Perelman Author Homepage] through the Electronic Poetry Center

* [http://www.writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Perelman.html Audio-files at PENNSound]

* [http://www.dcpoetry.com/?module=keywords&keyword=Perelman,%20Bob 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"

* [http://jacketmagazine.com/16/perelman-toh.html "An interview with Bob Perelman" by Toh Hsien Min] link here for an interview which appeared in Jacket Magazine (March 2002)

* [http://jacketmagazine.com/30/z-perelman.html Zukofsky at 100: Zukofsky as a Body of Work] this piece by Perelman is described as being "originally a talk at the "Zukofsky at 100" Conference at Columbia University in September, 2004"; see Louis Zukofsky (1904 — 1978)

* [http://jacketmagazine.com/02/marg.html A discussion of Bob Perelman’s book "The Marginalization of Poetry"] This feature contains readings and responses to Perelman’s book by Ron Silliman, Ann Lauterbach, Juliana Spahr, Steve Evans, Bob Perelman, and Kate Lilley, directly followed by Mr Perelman’s counter-response.

* [http://www.thegrandpiano.org/ 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.