Gertrude Stein: an incompleted portrait

We know now no
substitution was made.

If
a noun is a noun is a noun is a noun
the rose is
no longer red.
Or read.
Or a reed
by any other name.

[By the way, as for Language Poetry, Stein had already done the same bit sixty years earlier. All the fuzzy headed, Socialist criticism of lyric voice and accepted narrative structure is anticipated by Stein in everything she writes, and, it would appear, without having to think about it to the point of absurdity, as in Michael Davidson's assertion that language is a system "that exists in service to ideological interests of the dominant culture." That might be a useful idea to a poet, but as a statement about language is almost certainly ridiculous. But hey, I'm no linguist.]