Beyond the Symbol: Bob Perelman on Paterson

A couple weeks ago, I talked to Bob Perelman about Paterson, language poetry, and the "grade school pageant" aspect of Paterson's symbology. I thought that the author of the poem "China"--which Fredric Jameson posited as an exemplar of postmodernism, in league with the Westin Bonaventure Hotel and Body Heat--would have something to say about the referential gap between Paterson and Paterson. At the end, I ask Perelman to read some of his own "no ideas but in things" poems from his early collection The First World.
Approaching Paterson: (2 min. 32 sec.)
Paterson's mass of unarticulated sound: (3 min. 44 sec.)
The pitfalls of taking on the epic: (1 min. 33 sec.)
Perelman reads from Book I, part 3 and discusses: (10 min. 12 sec)
Perelman reads from his collection The First World: (3 min. 18 sec.)