Losing the thread for the weave June 11, 2008: I’ve been a loyal reader of Bookforum for almost a decade, though my enthusiasm for it has waxed and waned and waxed again. In the late ’90s (during my favorite incarnation of it), Bookforum was full of smart and clever (but not too clever), frequently younger writers (among my favorites was Matthew DeBord; whatever happened to him? . . . I [...] by Alan Gilbert

Conceptual Poetry Conference: Audio and Video June 11, 2008: Video and audio recordings of the University of Arizona Poetry Center symposium Conceptual Poetry & Its Others Audio Keynote Address: Marjorie Perloff Caroline Bergvall Charles Bernstein Christian Bök Craig Dworkin Kenneth Goldsmith Tracie Morris Cole Swensen Videos Reading with Tracie Morris and Charles Bernstein Reading with Craig Dworkin and [...] by Kenneth Goldsmith

Christian Conceptual Poetry: Divine Authorship or Appropriation? June 11, 2008: Several Christian poets invented conceptual poetry long before Kenny G. All four claim to have composed--with the help of divine inspiration--a popular Christian poem called "Footprints" and all "have memories of the precise moment when they dreamed up these lines." Rachel Aviv first reported on this "accidental plagiarism" here. Carl Jung [...] by Emily Warn

Conceptual Poetics: A Practicum June 11, 2008: I love this idea of valueless, unoriginal poetry based on junk. I’ve been trying to write poems, and now it turns out that I could have just been assembling them. I mean, I’ve done some avant-gardist things in my time (let us call them, for lack of a better term, “poems"), but I think I spent way too much time worrying about making [...] by D.A. Powell

Avant-Garde and Modern, Part One June 10, 2008: I am back from the dead if not yet from the walking wounded (fever and fatiuge, nausea and vomiting, hot sweats and cold chills), and am posting a piece on which I've been working for a while. I hope that it proves to be of interest. In his provocative book Theory of The Avant-Garde, German art theorist Peter Bürger makes a useful distinction [...] by Reginald Shepherd

Conceptual Poetics: On Appropriation June 10, 2008: A question I'm often asked is, how is conceptual poetry's embrace of appropriation anything new when, after all, poets have been appropriating from time eternal. They claim that, particularly in the twentieth century, with the advent of collage and pastiche, it's all been done before. And then there's always the mention of Kathy Acker, who was a [...] by Kenneth Goldsmith

Like a Rock? June 10, 2008: More notes on the Working Class, Obama, and "the superstructure of poetry" Alan’s excellent post and the excellent running commentary have pushed me to try to clarify a few things in my earlier entry. First off, by my use of “contemporary poetry” (and Alan is right to read a hint of skepticism) I mean the entire realm of the field, [...] by Mark Nowak

Varooom!!! Boom! June 10, 2008: William Eggleston, published in Grand Street 49, 1994. Conceptual Poem: Ode to Gas Dale Smith Gas makes things go. From here to there Is a long way. Gas makes things go. "I" like it because It gets "me" around Real easy. It lets big trucks Drop my greens At the grocery store. Gas, you makes things go So I won't know A walk in summer heat. No one [...] by Linh Dinh

A Contemporary Poetics June 10, 2008: Beware the Jabberwock, my son! by Travis Nichols

Poetry or poets? June 9, 2008: I always prefer it when the relationship between politics and poetry is approached as a question. Mark Nowak’s June 6th post contains a couple of queries that in turn have generated a stimulating string of comments: “Does contemporary poetry have any desire to open a dialogue with my Denny’s waitress (or my former Wendy’s co-workers)?" and [...] by Alan Gilbert