Robert+Grenier

**Robert Grenier** is an American poet, critic, and editor, largely associated with the Language movement of the 1960’s and ‘70’s. In 1971, Grenier helped found and co-edit the first three issues of //This// journal—one of the first publications to collect emerging Language poets. Throughout the length of his career, Grenier has employed various compositional techniques to create his poems, including colored pencil on note cards, and digital-text slideshows. =Biography =

Robert Grenier was born August 4, 1941, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. For his education, Grenier attended Harvard and received a degree in Creative Writing from the University of Iowa. In 1971, Grenier helped found //This// magazine, and became recognized as a significant figure of the Language poets as its initial editor. Currently residing in Bolinas, California, he has so far achieved two NEA fellowships for his poetry. Grenier is still active in poetry, as he travels the country reading and showing his poetry at Colleges and Universities. Limited details are available on the life of Robert Grenier, which is a recognizable trait among language poets who wish to put emphasis on their work instead of themselves.

=Movement =

Language Poetry
Grenier's //This// magazine brought about a new technique called Language Poetry. Language poetry is an avant-garde movement that brought attention to how words and symbols come together to represent thoughts and ideas. It also brought attention to the political nature of language, and defied the nature of traditional literature by frequently being comprised of fragments that seem nonsensical. The community of language poets is small, but thrives on its aversion to the mainstream.

//"//I HATE SPEECH."
In the first issue of //This// magazine in 1971, Robert Grenier famously declared “I HATE SPEECH.” This was an ironic, but influential statement that marked Language poetry’s “dismissal of "voice" as the foundational principle of lyric poetry.” In his 1986 book, //In the American Tree,// Ron Silliman elaborated Grenier’s statement by writing that it “announced a breach--and a new moment in American writing"—a turn away from "simple ego psychology in which the poetic text represents not a person, but a persona, the human as unified object. And the reader likewise."

=Notable Pieces =


 * Co-editor of //This// Magazine (1971-1974)
 * //Penn Scanns//
 * //Sentences//
 * Excerpt from //R H Y M M S//
 * //GREETING and POND I//
 * //Series//
 * //Oakland//
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">//A Day At The Beach//
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">//Phantom Anthems//
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">//OWL/ON/BOU/GH//

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">//This// Magazine
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">//This// Magazine was a radical publication published between 1971 and 1982. First, it was a joint effort by Robert Grenier and Barrett Watten, but after the first five issues, it was solely taken on by Watten. It was a poetry journal that featured Language Poetry, a movement of which, as discussed previously, Robert Grenier played an essential role. There were a total of twelve issues featuring poetry from over ten poets of the language variety. Though there is not much information about //This// Magazine available, an archive of the works in the magazine is available here: //This// Magazine.

=<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Artistic Techniques =

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Minimalism**
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Grenier uses a style called minimalist poetry. To convey minimalism, Grenier works by hand, writing with four different colors in a notebook. This style, for Grenier, entails seemingly simplistic ideas, which, in their lack of complexity, convey any number of ideas and interpretations. The following example of Grenier's minimalist poetry is shown below, demonstrating hand-drawn, colored lines which vaguely resemble letters: <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Another example of Grenier's minimalism would be a series of words, structured in a manor which could evoke multiple different interpretations, such as: <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> ** APRI ** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> ** COT ** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> ** JAM ** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> **JAR** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> While both of these works are unique and different in their appearance, they are similar in that they are very simple in appearance, allowing a viewer or reader to infer a myriad of meanings from either piece.

=<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Interpretations =

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">//Sentences// (1978)
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> Grenier's composition, //Sentences//, is comprised of 500 index cards with varying words and phrases. Some of the cards contain a single word, while others contain lists of words, but none of these cards present language in a conventional manner. For example, one card says the following:
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">BEFORE IT BIT

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">might be

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">a good

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">year killed

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">the first

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">black fly

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">that bit

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">me and

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">the first

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">mosquito || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">This seems to be more of a thought than a sentence or a poem. Perhaps it is a poem presented in the form of thought. Another card of //Sentences// simply reads this: <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">No two cards appear to be clearly linked together, although it seems to be up to the reader to decide whether or not ideas connect. Who the "her" is in the above passage is unclear, and the overall meaning of the entire piece is not made clear either. One might refer to such ambiguity as @indeterminacy.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I hop after her ||

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">The Element of Chance in //Sentences://
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">The reading experience of Grenier's composition is entirely dependent upon chance. The random succession of cards creates a unique reading nearly every time. Because of this unrestricted arrangement, the composition of the poem may seem disjointed, but if experienced for a long enough time, associations are developed between the cards by the reader.

Sentences as Music
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">One portion of Grenier's work in //Sentences// can be interpreted as music instead of a collection of letters. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> can be interpreted as either <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> media type="file" key="Sentences Version Two.mid" width="300" height="50" <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> or <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> media type="file" key="Sentences Version Five.mid" width="300" height="50" <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> or more liberally as this <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> media type="file" key="Sentences Version Four.mid" width="300" height="50" =A Video of Grenier=

media type="youtube" key="hrffo4ctEl4" height="315" width="420"

=**References**= <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-align: center;">Images are used in accordance with fair use practices.If you hold copyright to an image, and do not agree that its use accords with fair use practices,please contact the wiki's creator and organizer.