Bruce Andrews

Bruce Andrews (April 1, 1948) is an American poet who is one of the key figures associated with the Language poets (or L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets, after the magazine that bears that name).

Andrews was born in Chicago and studied international relations at Johns Hopkins University and political science at Harvard.

His first book, Edge, was published in 1973.

Andrews was a professor of political science at Fordham University from 1975 to 2013.

He harshly criticized what he called the US government's policies of oppression and subversion.

Together with Charles Bernstein, he edited L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Magazine, which ran to 13 issues between 1978 and 1981 and (along with other magazines such as This, A Hundred Posters, Big Deal, Dog City, Hills, Là Bas, Oculist Witnesses, QU, and Roof) was one of the most important outlets for Language poetry.

In 1984 he and Bernstein published most of the contents of the 13 issues in The L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Book.

Andrews rejects the classical notion of poetry as the 'direct treatment' of things in language, arguing that the only thing that can be so treated is language itself.

His books include I Don't Have Any Paper So Shut Up (Or, Social Romanticism) (1992) and Ex Why Zee: Performance Texts, Collaborations with Sally Silvers, Word Maps, Bricolage & Improvisation (1995).

Designated Heartbeat (Salt Publishing, 2006; ISBN 1-84471-068-8) and Swoon Noir (Chax Press, 2007; ISBN 978-0-925904-48-5) bring Andrews well into the 21st century.

The following works by Andrews have been republished in e-book format at Eclipse, which is a free on-line archive focusing on digital facsimiles of original works by various authors:

Andrews appeared on the O'Reilly Factor in November 2006 after a Fordham student who interned on the program complained about Andrews' leftist views.

Andrews has published about forty books of poetry, either on his own or in collaboration with other writers, as well as a number of books of essays.