Charles Bernstein | Conversations, Conversions, Convolutions: Poetics, Aesthetics, and Criticism

Please join us for the inaugural Yvor Winters Conversation Series. This series aims to bring together poets and scholars in dialogue about poetics, criticism, and all that remains in between.

For our first conversation, we are thrilled to host poet, essayist and scholar Charles Bernstein, who will be joined by Stanford PhD candidate Jon Tadmor (Comparative Literature).

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About the Speakers

Charles Bernstein is a poet, essayist and Donald T. Regan Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. A foundational member of the Language poetry movement and co-editor of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E magazine from 1978 to 1981, Bernstein has since published over twenty collections of poetry. His most recent collection is Topsy-Turvy, published by University of Chicago Press in 2021. Bernstein is a prolific critic and theorist, and his latest book of essays, The Kinds of Poetry I Want: Essays & Comedies, was published in 2024. He is also the director of PennSound and the editor and co-founder of the Electronic Poetry Center.

Jon Tadmor is a PhD candidate in Comparative Literature at Stanford University, writing about poetic difficulty in American, Hebrew and Yiddish modernisms. Jon’s writing—including academic articles, translations and poetry—can be found in Ot: A Journal of Literary Criticism and Theory, Ho! Literary Magazine and Dibur: Curated. Jon also serves as co-chair of the Stanford Center for Poetics and as an editor at Mantis: A Journal of Poetry, Criticism & Translation.