Brand Upon the Brain! May 11, 2007: We've just posted Jessica Fisher's Q&A with filmmaker Guy Maddin. His latest, Brand Upon the Brain! started a limited run in New York on Wednesday (John Ashbery performs live as the narrator this Sunday); catch it in Chicago the following weekend (Crispin Glover narrates); and Los Angeles after that (celeb narrators TBA). A few stills from the [...] by Nick Twemlow

May 10, 2007: Tonight, I spoke about the importance of the imagination at the commencement ceremonies at one of our larger technical colleges in South Carolina. Afterwards, the presidents shook my hand firmly and said, “You are not the person I saw in your poems, you must have a double personality…” She was smiling. I laughed. In her introduction she [...] by Kwame Dawes

Paragraphs On Conceptual Writing May 10, 2007: I will refer to the kind of writing in which I am involved as conceptual writing. In conceptual writing the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an author uses a conceptual form of writing, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a [...] by Kenneth Goldsmith

David Lerner May 10, 2007: Here's an introduction I wrote about David Lerner for a new anthology called The Spoken Word Revolution Redux (edited by Mark Eleveld). Lerner is a poet few people have heard of; his top dozen poems or so are outstanding. After the introduction, I've pasted one of his poems. * “It is said that a saint only becomes an icon after many years of [...] by Jeffrey McDaniel

Kenneth Goldsmith Ain’t No High-Paid Publicist May 9, 2007: Wow Kenneth, you make your readings sound really unpleasant. I love readings. Although maybe I wouldn't love yours? But I think I would. Sometimes, during a reading, I just sit and write. All that swirling language inspires me or perhaps, more accurately, occupies one part of my brain and allows another to be open to making poems. I’ve [...] by Rachel Zucker

Political Poetry May 9, 2007: George Lamming, a West Indian novelist, observed something interesting to me yesterday on the phone. He was speaking from Bathsheba, Barbados. He referred to a book that he thought I should read, although I can’t recall the name. The point of the work was that somehow, in the last fifteen years, the concept of the market became the accepted [...] by Kwame Dawes

May 8, 2007: Kwame's (Dawes) recent blog about readings is a tad depressing. This is one instance when I know we must occupy different spaces in the world. As I said before, I dislike readings. While I like doing readings, I despair at being an audience member at readings. I agree, there is probably one central reason why I like doing readings. Generally, the [...] by Kenneth Goldsmith

Kenneth Goldsmith Sings Sigmund Freud May 8, 2007: Slips of the Tongue (MP3) Music by The Who Recorded at the WFMU studios, Jersey City, NJ, June 21, 2006 (MP3) by Kenneth Goldsmith

What poetry would be like… May 8, 2007: ...if we were paid by the word. The following is one sentence in Michael Wolff’s story in the April issue of Vanity Fair: "Sitting in Judge Reggie Walton's court for a front-page trial, it was oddly underattended, as if the world has moved on from the Bush administration - trying to keep track of who spoke to whom (and wondering how the jury was [...] by Patricia Smith

May 7, 2007: Kenneth’s (Goldsmith) recent blog about readings is a tad depressing. This is one instance when I know we must occupy different spaces in the world. I like readings. I like doing readings and I being an audience member at readings. There is probably one central reason why I like doing readings. Generally, the people who are there to hear me read [...] by Kwame Dawes