A Virtual Reality

Perelman ( Braille ) has long been a figure central to the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E group of American poets, although that assignation seems popular these days only among its detractors. Still, what has characterized the work of Perelman and others is a sense that language is a system all too constrained by the imperatives of individual self-expression that are constantly foisted upon it. Theoretical links made between the celebration of self and capitalism's privileging of individualism have given these poets a political agenda. Perelman is perhaps the first out of the gate with a collection that bears the marks of the new world order after the collapse of communism: `` . . .The free world belongs / in a language museum now, along / with free love and free verse.'' The new world, for Perelman, is an expanding network of digitized connections where identity is defined by one's linkages, `` . . . validating it, urging instant / credit, free getaways, passionate replacement offers.'' Although Perelman's voice is often dire, he has located, perhaps, a future for language-centered writing, ``at the points where communities end, at their boundaries, at the points of contact between different communities.'' (June)