L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Magazine

L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Magazine
Title	L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Magazine
Editor	Bruce Andrews; Charles Bernstein
Category	Poetry; Literary magazine
Firstdate	1978
Finaldate	1981
Country	United States
Based	New York City
Language	English

L=A=N=G=G=U=A=G=E Magazine L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Magazine was a small-press periodical associated with the Language poets, New American Poetry, and avant-garde networks centered in New York City, San Francisco, and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1978 by poets including Bruce Andrews and Charles Bernstein, the magazine published experimental text by writers connected to Ron Silliman, Lyn Hejinian, Rae Armantrout, Ted Berrigan, and others, while intersecting with institutions such as Northeastern University, University of California, Berkeley, and cultural spaces like St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery. The journal's issues showcased work that linked practices from Gertrude Stein, William Carlos Williams, John Ashbery, Jackson Mac Low, and Susan Howe to contemporaries active in the 1970s and 1980s scenes.

History

The magazine emerged amid the aftermath of the Beat Generation's visibility and the countercultural networks around City Lights Bookstore, Poetry Project, and small presses such as Gurmat Press and Roof Books. Its founders drew on antecedents including L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E-adjacent conversations at conferences like Generative Art Conference and panels hosted by The New School and Columbia University. Early contributors traded correspondence with figures resident in San Francisco, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Chicago, producing an interregional exchange comparable to earlier periodicals such as The Little Review, Poetry, and The Dial. Publication run and distribution intersected with alternative hubs like St. Mark's Poetry Project, ABC No Rio, and community bookstores including Printed Matter.

Editorial Policy and Aesthetics

Editors framed selection around a declarative interest in syntax, reader position, and materiality, aligning with practices found in work by Charles Reznikoff, Basil Bunting, Friedrich Hölderlin translators, and translations circulated by John Ashbery's contemporaries. The magazine prioritized pieces foregrounding metalinguistic commentary and anti-narrative strategies resonant with Pierre Bourdieu-adjacent debates in cultural fields, aesthetics advanced by critics at Harvard University, Yale University, and SUNY Buffalo. Policy emphasized peer networks connecting Baghdad Alternative Press-style small operations, cross-pollination with experimental music scenes of John Cage and Merce Cunningham, and collaboration with visual artists linked to Robert Rauschenberg, Ed Ruscha, and Sol LeWitt.

Contributors and Notable Works

Contributors included central and peripheral figures across poetic networks: Charles Bernstein, Bruce Andrews, Ron Silliman, Lyn Hejinian, Rae Armantrout, Kit Robinson, Bob Perelman, Ted Greenwald, Tom Raworth, Cathy Park Hong, and Alan Davies. The magazine ran early versions or essays by writers later anthologized alongside Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, H.D., and W.B. Yeats in critical surveys. It printed pieces by translators and polymaths linked to Octavio Paz, Paul Celan, Jorge Luis Borges, Gao Xingjian, and Czesław Miłosz, and published criticism engaging reception histories of Ezra Pound and the Objectivist lineage. Special sections showcased collaborations involving figures from the Fluxus movement, intersecting with artists such as Nam June Paik, Yoko Ono, and poets in dialogue with composers affiliated with IRCAM and Miller Theatre.

Publication Format and Design

Issues were produced as stapled and saddle-stitched chapbooks with typographic experiments influenced by avant-garde printing cultures tied to Granary Books, Cuneiform Press, and letterpress workshops at RIT and Cooper Union. Visual layout echoed design experiments from Emigre and Paul Rand's graphic modernism while incorporating collage strategies familiar from H.D.'s manuscript practices and Dada-era periodicals such as Cabaret Voltaire. The magazine's covers and interiors featured contributions from graphic artists associated with Helen Frankenthaler, Jasper Johns, and Barbara Kruger, and used paper stocks and bindings similar to those of Grey Press and Black Sparrow Press.

Reception and Influence

Contemporaneous reviews appeared in venues like Poetry, The New York Times Book Review, and small-press newsletters circulated through Small Press Traffic and university reading series at Brown University, University of California, San Diego, and Cornell University. Reception ranged from acclaim by advocates connected to New American Poetry anthologies to critique from defenders of more traditional schools represented by Academy of American Poets affiliates and editors at The Atlantic. Over subsequent decades, the magazine's imprint influenced curricula at programs including Iowa Writers' Workshop, NYU, and CUNY Graduate Center, and informed scholarly work in journals such as Contemporary Literature, Boundary 2, and Critical Inquiry.

Archive and Availability

Physical runs survive in special collections at institutions like University of Buffalo, Smith College, Houghton Library, Ransom Center, and archives of The Poetry Foundation. Microfilm and digitized holdings exist within consortia including JSTOR-linked repositories, university library systems at Princeton University and University of Michigan, and private holdings cataloged by EBSCO. Reprints, selections, and critical anthologies featuring content originally published in the magazine have been issued by small presses such as Roof Books, Wesleyan University Press, and University of California Press and are cited in dissertations lodged at ProQuest collections.

Category:Literary magazines published in the United States