Contemporary Poetry

196 contemporary poetry

shared language. As opposed to dialect in poetry, Bernstein argues
that an ‘ideolectical’ approach creates a ‘virtual’ poetics of the
Americas, allowing in effect for a range of different idioms. Above
all, Bernstein stresses that an ‘ideolectical’ poetics is provisional,
unlike dialect in poetry which is still ‘informed’, if not regulated,
by its difference to ‘standard’ language practices:

By linking dialect and ideolect I wish to emphasize the

common ground of linguistic exploration, the invention of

new syntaxes as akin to the invention of new Americas, or

of new possibilities for America... nonstandard writing

practices share a technical commonality that overrides the

necessary differences of interpretation and motivation, and

this commonality may be the vortical prosodic force that gives

us footing with one another... dialect understood as nation

language, has a centripetal force, regrouping often denigrated

and dispirited language practices around a common center;

ideolect in contrast, suggests a centrifugal force moving

away from normative practices without necessarily replacing

them with a new center of gravity, at least defi ned by self or

group.^69

Bernstein is proposing languages of differentiation, not merely
the placing of words in unusual grammatical orders. Initially, this
development in the poet’s conceptualisation of poetic language
appears to promote a solipsistic enquiry advocating multiple forms
of ‘private’ language. Yet, Bernstein in an early essay categori-
cally states that ‘the idea of a private language is illusory because
language itself is a communality, a public domain. Its forms and
contents are in no sense private – they are the very essence of
the social’.^70 On refl ection, what is shared in this enterprise of
an ‘ideolectical’ approach to poetry is the creation of a common
social space for these linguistic endeavours, and an attempt to
decentralise the informing role of rule-governed practices in poetic
language:

The use of dialectical or ideolectical language in a poem

marks a refusal of standard English as the common ground of