'Materiality is not just an idea but also a responsibility'

'The social grounding of poetry cannot be evaded by recourse to a purely intellectual idea of the materiality of language since the materiality of language is in the first instance a social materiality and, at the same time, a materiality not of selves and identities but of bodies, including gendered bodies. Materiality, that is, is not just an idea but also a responsibility.'

Charles Bernstein, 'Revenge of the Poet-Critic'