In answer to my own call for a pro-consumerist poetry, I was reminded that writers have long been the ultimate consumers. This has been true in analog times -- the relationship between library and writer is a paragon of consumerism -- and is even more pronounced in our digital environment. In navigating the enormous field of available textual material in our collective networked digital dispensaries, the craft of writing lies in the acquisition, collecting, organization and archiving of existing texts rather than in the creation of new ones. In doing so, our traditional relationship to textuality, where the struggle for meaning trumps all, is inverted; the acquisition of text becomes more valuable than the content of the acquired texts: quantity trumps quality. How I navigate -- rather than how I create -- is what distinguishes me from another writer. I am an intelligent agent carving a unique path through the this thicket of language; what distinguishes my practice from yours is the particular swath I carve.

Ara Shirinyan "Resolution: I Promise to Write Better Poetry" [PDF, 5.2 mb]

Lord Whimsy's favorite shoes. So precious. Limited to indoor use.

Ange, I'm going to not only agree with you, but trump you one and say that it's not only temperament which is a motivating force in the creation of art, but even more important is the notion of taste. Any avantist who made a point of killing art did it with impeccable taste, hence its ultimate absorption into the canon of art. Take Duchamp. Every objet trouvé of his reeked of his taste. What if, for example, Duchamp had chosen a light bulb (as Johns did later with impeccable taste) instead of a urinal? a shoe (as Warhol did later with impeccable taste) instead of a bicycle wheel? What made these anti-art objects essentially Duchampian was his great taste. In writing, Jackson Mac Low, too, had amazing taste: he made all the right choices to free himself of choice-making.

Contrary to my own claims, I'm always banging my head against the realization that no matter how hard you try, you can never remove the individual from art. I have made arguments for ego-less art, found art, art driven by chance operations and many other strains, but in fact there's always someone behind the curtain, manning the machines. I have yet to encounter tasteless art. We try too hard, which is why I'm always in favor of doing less. If there's one thing that the avant-garde has shown us, it's that regardless of form, non-expression is impossible.

UbuWeb Radio is up and running. Listen to a 24-hour continuous stream from UbuWeb's vast MP3 archives. All avant-garde, all the time.

Peter Baldes, Joan Jonas, Vertical Roll, Sliced Vertically (2005)

With the rise of the web, writing has met its photography. By that I mean, writing has encountered a situation similar to what happened to painting upon the invention of photography, a technology so much better at doing what the art form had been trying to do, that in order to survive, the field had to alter its course radically. If photography was striving for sharp focus, painting was forced to go soft, hence Impressionism. Faced with an unprecedented amount of digital available text, writing needs to redefine itself in order to adapt to the new environment of textual abundance.

Sean Flannagan "Book Cover Rant"

In the vein of DieKu, this time with book covers.

Full series after the jump.

LECTURE ON THE WEATHER (1975) by John Cage
(courtesy of the John Cage Trust. Score available from C.F. Peters)

COMMISSIONED BY THE CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION IN OBSERVANCE OF THE BICENTENNIAL OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

PREFACE

The first thing I thought of doing in relation to this work was to find an anthology of American aspirational thought and subject it to chance operations. I thought the resultant complex would help to change our present intellectual climate. I called up Dover and asked whether they published such an anthology. They didn't. I called a part of Columbia University concerned with American history and asked about aspirational thought. They knew nothing about it. I called the information desk of the New York Public Library at 42nd Street. The man who answered said: "You may think I'm not serious, but I am; if you're interested in aspiration, go to the Children's Library on 52nd Street." I did. I found that anthologies for children are written by adults: they are what adults think are good for children. The thickest one was edited by Commager (Documents of American History). It is a collection of legal judgments, presidential reports, congressional speeches. I began to realize that what is called balance between the branches of our government is not balance at all: all the branches of our government are occupied by lawyers.

Nicole Dextras "Camellia Countessa" (camellia flowers, lilac flowers, yucca leaves, laurel leaves, and thorns)

More from the woman who brought you Frozen Words.

Here is her summer line, just in time for the Fourth of July. Lovely, no?

More weedrobes here.

See ya in a few days...

Interview at Archinect

Frozen Words, Nicole Dextras, Winter 2007.

Stay cool this weekend. These words were made out of ice and set out in the landscape and left to melt. The largest project was the word VIEW which stands 6 feet high. The other words were done with marquee letters that are about 18 inches high. The high winds off Lake Ontario sometimes blew individual letters over before they had time to melt. View full Flickr set here

To Our Latina/o Readers,

First of all, my apologies that this piece offended you. It was not intended to. Rather, it was meant to bring some of the simmering comments up from below the fold. Also, it was meant to highlight the fact that the Spanish language was absent from this site, something I learned from all of you. And thirdly, it was meant really as a self-effacing comment regarding my -- and most American's -- sad fact that many only speak only one language. It obviously didn't fly and once again, I apologize.

I use this chunk of text when I read in countries where English is not the first language. And I read the text in the native language of that country. I always make a fool of myself, which, as implied by the text is my intention. I stumble over words, mangle sentences. It gets to the point in most places where it is simply unintelligible, particularly in countries where the language is very different from English (Helsinki was a disaster!). The result is a cultural breaking of the ice, a debunkment of American linguistic Imperialistic tendencies -- most of which are almost never addressed in such situations (when was the last time an American poet apologized for speaking English in a foreign country before a reading? It never happens. Instead the reading takes place in English). I have read this piece in English in front of the entire MLA during this year's Presidential Forum.

It's a great piece when spoken; now I see that the point is lost when written.

The situation of non-understanding is something I use as a positive trope. I try to treat English in my work as a foreign language, hence the "utopian state we find ourselves in right now." Here is the way the paragraph reads normally for a reading:

I am an American poet, and like most Americans, I speak only one language. When asked to read in Stockholm, I figured that the last thing Sweden (or the rest of the world) needed was more imported American culture--in English--no less (remember the Clash's "I'm So Bored With The U.S.A."?). Hence, I've decided to start my reading in Swedish, a language that I have never spoken nor written.

Most likely, you can't understand a word I'm saying, even though it's your native language. So, we're even: We're both in a situation of not understanding. All we can possibly do is listen to the way that the words sound instead of what they mean. And by doing so we are all entering into a new relationship to language that permits us to reframe the mundane in the language of the mundane.

For years, I've been working toward a situation like the one we find ourselves in now: one where language is purely formal and concrete; like language itself, this talk is both meaningful and meaningless at the same time. The air is now thick with sound posing as language.

I could continue and do the whole reading in Swedish but I think you get the point. Now I'll do the rest of the reading in English, but after this rough beginning, you can better understand what I'm trying to do with my work in my native language: to approximate the utopian situation we find ourselves in at the moment, one of willful ignorance.

Thank you for your understanding and again, please accept my apologies.

-- Kenneth

By the way, I love Rich's idea of retyping Neruda's Canto General!

Soy un poeta estadounidense, y como el resto de mis compatriotas, hablo sólo un idioma. Cuando me pidieron que escribiera para Harriet, el blog del Poetry Foundation, supuse que lo último que necesitaba Harriet (o para el caso el resto del mundo) era más sobre la cultura norteamericana (recuerdan la canción de The Clash "I'm So Bored with the U.S.A"?). Por lo tanto he decidido escribir este blog en español, idioma que nunca he escrito o hablado.

Lo más probable es que nadie entienda una sola palabra de lo que digo, ni siquiera si el español es su primera lengua. Así que estamos a mano: ambos estamos en la situación de no entendernos. Lo único que podemos hacer es escuchar cómo suenan las palabras en lugar de pensar en qué quieren decir. Y al hacerlo todos accedemos a una nueva relación con el lenguaje que nos permite volver a enmarcar lo mundano en el lenguaje de lo mundano.

Por muchos años he estado trabajando en aras de una situación como ésta en la que nos encontramos ahora: una en la que el lenguaje sea sólamente formal y concreto. Como el lenguaje mismo, esta entrada en el blog a la vez tiene y no tiene sentido. Esta página está cargada de sonido que posa o aparenta ser lenguaje.

Podría continuar el resto de mis entradas en español, pero creo que han entendido el punto. Después de este tortuoso comienzo, pueden entender mejor lo que estoy tratando de hacer con mi trabajo: aproximarnos la situación utópica en la que nos encontramos ahora, una de buscada ignorancia. (Tr. Mónica de la Torre)

Click to enlarge

This unbelievable full-page MasterCard ad ran in last Wednesday's NYTimes.

Left to right: Jack Smith, (unidentified man), Harry Smith, Panna Grady, William S. Burroughs, Andy Warhol; NYC, winter 1964-65

A commenter on Silliman's blog asked the following question:

"Just curious Ron, but are any of your SoQ [School of Quietitude] poets happy to be tagged with this label now, today? Does anyone refer to him/herself as SoQ? As I say, just curious."

I'm curious too. Do any of the other bloggers or readers of Harriet identify themselves as such? Either way, how does Silliman's term strike you? Does such as school exist or is it a figment of Ron's imagination?

Wonderful 5-7-5 syllable haikus comprised of snapshots of tombstones called "DieKu", mysteriously appearing on the streets of New York recently. Enigmatically penned by "Nick Beef - NYC"

DieKu #1
Corona Brewer
Noble Golden Beer Skillman
Wetmore Lips Aleman

DieKu #2
Bizzaro Bushman
Texas Manno Wargo Wild
George Izzo Looney

Lengthy speculations have been suggested regarding the circumstances of the mysterious Mr. Beef.

With a discussion recently here involving Time Magazine's suggestion that "what poetry really needs is a writer who can do for it what Andy Warhol did for avant-garde visual art: make it sexy and cool and accessible without making it stupid or patronizing", I think the first thing we need to do is to find a poet who is unabashedly pro-consumerist. In our overdrive hyper-capitalist frenzied world, it's hard to find poets that actually celebrate, say, shopping. You might think that during the Bush administration, pro-consumerist poets would be coming out of the woodwork. But no, instead our Poet Laureates write about fishing on the Susquehanna in July, or porch swings in September, or ox-cart men (ox cart men???!!! WTF???!!!), hopelessly out of touch with what is obsessing most Americans (and most of the world): buying things.

The poetry world has yet to experience its version of Pop Art -- and Pop Art happened nearly 50 years ago. While the New York School fondled consumerism sweetly, using pop as a portal to subjectivity -- (O'Hara: "Having a Coke with you /is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne") -- it never came close to the cold objectivity, naked, prophetic words of Warhol: "If you're the Queen of England you couldn't have a better Coke than the bum on the corner." Clearly, Frank O'Hara is not our Andy Warhol.

However, all is not lost. In the two posts below are two contemporary poets dealing with consumerism head-on, in a way that would make Andy proud.

First, my Motorola
Alexandra Nemerov

Nemerov constructed this poem by simply listing every brand she touched sequentially during a day, from the moment she woke up, until the moment she went to sleep: it's hard to imagine a more accurate contemporary self-portrait. And it doesn't get "sexier", "cooler", or "more accessible" than this.

First, my Motorola
Then my Frette
Then my Sonia Rykiel
Then my Bvulgari
Then my Asprey
Then my Cartier
Then my Kohler
Then my Brightsmile
Then my Cetaphil
Then my Braun
Then my Brightsmile
Then my Kohler
Then my Cetaphil
Then my Bliss
Then my Apple
Then my Kashi
Then my Maytag
Then my Silk
Then my Pom
Then my Maytag
Then my Kohler
Then my Pur
Then my Fiji
Then my Kohler
Then my Maytag
Then my Herman Miller
Then my Crate and Barrel
Then my Apple
Then my On Gossamer
Then my La Perla
Then my Vince
Then my D&G
Then my Ralph Lauren
Then my Moschino
Then my Ralph Lauren
Then my Lucchese
Then my Apple

from Mon Catalogue
Claude Closky

Using a tactic similar to Nemerov's, Mon Catalogue is a complete listing of every possession Closky owns, which he then transcribed into first-person singular possessive catalogue-speak. Again, it's an amazingly contemporary form of self-portraiture, defining oneself not only by what one owns, but described in the language of consumerism. Chilling and dead-on.

Mon réfrigérateur

Le volume utile de mon réfrigérateur est bien supérieur aux capacités habituelles, et me permet de stocker mes produits frais et surgelés. Le compartiment a viande a temperature réglable et le bac a legumes avec contrôle d'humidité m'assurent une parfaite conservation de mes aliments. Outre le froid ventilé, il me fabrique et me distribue des glaçons ainsi que de l'eau fraIche. De plus, mon réfrigérateur est équipé d'une façade anti-salissure qui me facilite son entretien.

Mon gel purifiant

Pour matifier peu à peu l'aspect luisant de ma peau, resserrer mes pores dilatés et assainir mes comédons, j'ai une solution: nettoyer chaque soir mon visage avec mon gel purifiant au zinc associé à un actif régulateur de sébum qui élimine, sans me décaper, les impuretés accumulées pendant la journée. Ma peau ne brille plus. Le pouvoir apaisant du zinc, renforcé par un agent hydratant, adoucit et ressource les zones sèches de mon visage. Ma peau ne tire plus.

I'm no big fan of E-Poetry, but I do love code poetry. Here's a great example of code poetry by Lance Wakeling, who's been logging every word he types for a year with a keylogger as his conceptual writing practice:

[sic]--notes from a keylogger

The piece is related to Charles Bernstein's poems that he made by transcribing word for word the correction tape on his Selectric typewriter. Both pieces have overt social and political overtones in this time of increased government spying and corporate snooping.

Here's Wakeling's description: "As we type and edit our attention jumps from paragraph to paragraph and from program to program, leaving a trail of disconnected phrases and commands. Much of what we type is deleted before the final draft is reached, but it has not necessarily disappeared. The subject of sic is the record kept by a keylogger installed on my computer. Since the the keylogger records every key pressed, the data contain information best kept private, but the range of information is so great and cluttered with such noise it remains impenetrable and pretty much meaningless. Like a blog, sic is frequent and chronological--but unlike a blog it is a strictly linear record of non-linear processes. From a step back, the many colored key-commands and black phrases of text illustrate an abstract and personal topography of thoughts and actions. The illusion of sic is that everything is displayed, but the reality is that without the final products of the labor to compare, the record will always be incomplete, and will remain pieces whose sum is less than the sum of the whole."

He's also got another great piece here. There's no description of it, but it's fantastic nonetheless.

Kwame -- OH. MY. GOD. I can't believe we have something in common: The Carpenters! YES - yes yes - the Carpenters are #1 all-time in my book, in particular, the divine Karen. Karen Carpenter had by far, without a shadow of a doubt the best voice ever recorded! No one will ever come close to that angelic, pure, beautiful sound ever again. She was unique and has inspired many other "divas" such as Gloria Estefan and Madonna, and Miss Shania Twain ... all 3 have been quoted as saying that Miss Karen was the singing inspiration growing up. So there u have it ... not at all hard to choose the number one singer of all time, and as a result, choose the number one group of all time: The Carpenters. But I've got more to say about Karen...

Patricia,

It's all too easy to understand the fact that you felt violated by the uncredited appropriation of your poem by another person. You created it, most likely gave it away with an open heart, only later to find that you were written out of the equation. There is no justification for his actions. Copping another poet's words without it being part of a larger stated conceptual strategy is no good. And clearly, this kid's project was not an appropriation project. Ouch.

So your post brings up some good thinking points. As someone who doesn't "write" any words of his own, it makes me pause to wonder why some ways of framing language is fair game for lifting and others outright theft. Primarily, I think that it has to do with intention. If this student was exploring the appropriation of other poets' work as his articulated writing practice, I think his action would be justifiable. Patti, you would understand his actions in a different light, and perhaps even embrace them. But to try to pass it off as his own is silly -- even Romantic -- to my mind; it's morally and conceptually flawed.

I think that almost anything is justifiable if one's intention is stated up front. By the way, justifiable doesn't equal legal or moral rectitude, but on formal, conceptual, and aesthetic grounds, I'll accept it.

From the lengthy copyright discussion going on, now brought above the fold. Please feel free to chime in.

Emily Warn wrote:

For obvious reasons, we have to be street-legal for all poems that appear on poetryfoundation.org. This means that we generate a contract for every poem in our archive that is not in the public domain. Imagine the faxing, emailing, printing, phone calling, check cutting (more on that later), and data entry required to seek permission for its thousands of poems.

It slows us down. It limits the ideas for stories and articles about poetry that we can publish. For example, John Felstiner put together an annotated list of his favorite ten environmental poems for us to add to the archive. That was six months ago, and we're still waiting to hear back from some publishers.

I understand why it takes publishers so long to respond. They too have to generate and track contracts on a per poem basis. For long established presses, permission fees for "classic" poems, or poems that anthologists often seek, fund the publication of new work.

We conceived the archive, in part, as a kind of fluid canon, one that would be built over time as poets and journalists approached us with ideas about poets and poetry. Every story we ran, the theory went, would either be about poems in the archive, or add to to them, thus letting the archive reflect aesthetic choices other than ours, which are inevitably subjective.

Now we reject a lot of story ideas because we know how long it will take to get permission for the poems they feature. We can't, like Kenny, post what we want until someone objects. And, our permission fees support publishers, poets, and literary estates--a good thing, we think.

So Shanna and Kenneth, what if a Soft Skull or DIY title, or poems in your books became so valuable you could live off them, or use them to publish more books, would you decide not to charge for them?

Emily

Shanna Compton wrote:

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, emily! if that ever happens, i'll let you know!

it's highly unlikely that permission fees for single classic poems pay for/toward any future volumes of poetry--the publishing industry mostly publishes poetry as a "loss leader" or "prestige" category. the fees are not so much designed to generate revenue as they are to "protect" the investment of the initial publication of the book by preventing another outfit from cannibalizing the copyright and impacting their profitibility. this doesn't serve the poet, of course. the logic is, i guess, that a single poem reappearing in an anthology will negatively impact the sales of Famous Poet's Collected Poems? that's absurd. a poem in an anthology may very sell additional copies.

in almost every case unsubsidized poetry publishing (i.e. that done other than via academic/university presses or nonprofits or via a contest-model) has a miniscule chance of making back what the publisher spends to put it out, mostly because the traditional printing/distribution networks are too expensive, and get more expensive as the print-runs get smaller. (POD publishing and short-run digital printing can correct some of these problems, which is why i'm always yakking about how it's better for poetry.) the point is, the economic considerations of large commercial publishers are hobbling poetry.

if it "doesn't make money" they're not interested in it. if they're not interested in it, they won't take a chance on anything even marginally risky or new. thus, all they tend to publish is what they already know. (not knocking the knopf backlist, or peguin poets--i just realize that's only a fraction of what's really being done.) if "poetry doesn't make money" is that because of the poetry, or the way it is being published? and if it's the way it's being published and distributed, what can be done about that? thus the activities of DIYers and smaller-scale presses.

so the thrust of my argument(s) on this topic is always: separate the art from the business, at least insofar as possible, if you (as a poet or as a publisher) want to serve the art best. since public arts funding seems too much to hope for what with all the political tangling (see also: canadian poets who have it *much* better than we do, having their presses supported and even receiving travel funds, etc.), our best move is to eliminate the bulky industry networks and connect poet to reader in as few steps as possible. it's way cheaper. it has the bonus effect of being cheering for the poet who might otherwise feel frustrated at being "ignored."

the US has wrecked itself, culturally speaking, but the artists just have to keep on.

i don't mean to sound snide or whatever--this is all well and good of these larger presses--they are businesses, even some of the smallest ones. (soft skull included.) but poetry is not a business and it is simply not served best by a large industry. it's a culture vs. capital nightmare. (same goes for most "literary" genres.) one can look to film and music to see clear parallels--indie labels and filmmakers like david lynch dropping all his distributors to do inland empire diy style. (the $$ there is greater across the board, of course, but the analogy still holds. publishing books is a tough business for all kinds of reasons that do not come to bear on film and music.)

as for DIY poetry, it is mostly distributed at cost or very near it, and often swapped or gifted. that is a big part of the DIY culture and it lines up perfectly with the poetry-gift-economy that kenny talks about (and eileen tabios is always talking about on her blog). the poems changing hands is simply more important than money changing hands.

[sorry, i'm typing on the fly. this comment is probably all over the place...]

Dear poets, we are privileged to live in an economy of no economy. Let me refine that: our economy is purely an intellectual one, not a financial one.

I have no copyright restrictions on my work—economically or legally—in perpetuity. I don't believe that the result of my lifetime's labor will have any economic ramifications, even long after my death.

I don't doubt that it will have intellectual ramifications, though, but those consequences are entirely based on the work being made freely available for all. If I were to propose an economic model, the entire premise of my work would be undermined.

Putting on my UbuWeb editor's hat now, I must say that it is a fallacy that in the field of poetry, your heirs will financially profit from your work as a poet. Sometimes on UbuWeb we see unenlightened heirs holding on tightly with both hands, trying to wring a profit out of their deceased works (fees for reprinting, use on websites, etc.). What they essentially do is pull their beloved's work out of circulation forever, ensuring it's extinction. Little do they realize that by giving the work away, they will have a much better chance at preserving greater longevity for these works. If you can't access them, they don't exist.

Ours is an economy based on plentitude and abundance; the more copies of our work there are out there and the more readily available they are, the greater the impact our works will have. This is in contrast to economic forms based on scarcity: diamonds, paintings, fine watches.

Now I suppose there are exceptions, but they're very few and far between. I've had some rather famous people agree with me when it comes to our free distribution theories on UbuWeb. When the New York Times asked Merce Cunningham if he was upset that we didn't ask his permission to place his audio files (lectures and interviews) on UbuWeb, he responded that he felt that the greater good of having his thoughts out there, freely available, would far outweigh any economic benefit he would receive from them.

Everything I publish I also make freely available on the web. And here's a funny story: A few summers ago, I was taken on an all-expenses paid reading tour of Scandinavia. I read to packed houses, stayed in beautiful hotels, ate marvelous meals, had vast newspaper, television and radio coverage. And the punchline... not a single person in Scandinavia had ever seen a book of mine. All they knew of me was from what I posted on the web. With my books in runs from tiny houses, never totaling over 1000 copies, it cost them more to ship from SPD than the price of the book. Again, friends, if it doesn't exist on the internet, it doesn't exist.

I would like to ask all of the bloggers the following questions:

- Do you copyright your poems? Why or why not?
- As a poet, what is your relationship to copyright issues, in general?

It would be better if we each responded in a separate post as a comments-based discussion would inevitably get buried.

- Kenneth

Thank you for the outpouring of sympathetic notes regarding my relegation to the Siberia of academia. But quite frankly, I'm happy where I am. I prefer the coolness and distance of academia. I feel comfortable with its glacial tempo, its seriousness, its studiousness, and the dryness of its protocols. I prefer the long shelf-life of the academic book to the person-to-person immediacy of the reading or slam.

I'm interested in less emotion, not more. The idea of a "warm" literary festival or even worse, a "cozy" residency turns my stomach. The last thing I want is to meet my readership in the flesh. I prefer email to hugs, culture to nature, air-conditioning to gentle breezes, fluorescent lighting to tropical sunsets, theft to originality, falsification to truth, the manufactured to the hand-crafted, Barry Bonds to Hank Aaron, and value artifice more than life itself.

"To only speak with the words of others, that's what I'd like. That's what freedom must be." ("Ne parler qu'avec les mots des autres, c'est ce que je voudrais. Ce doit tre ca la liberté.") - Raphael Rubinstein

----------------------------
UBUWEB :: Spring 2007
----------------------------

--- RECENT FEATURES ---

Stan Brakhage: The Test of Time (MP3) A series of 20 half-hour long radio broadcasts by Brakhage recorded at KAIR, Univeristy of Colorado in 1982. Includes long passages of Brakhage musing on subjects such as film, poetry, theater, and other arts. Includes music, lectures, readings, and sound pieces by Edgar Varese, Peter Kubelka, Kenneth Patchen, Charles Ives, Kurt Schwitters, Robert Duncan, Ed Dorn, Glenn Gould, James Joyce, Virgil Thomson, Gertrude Stein, Olivier Messiaen, Louis Zukofsky, William Faulkner, Charles Olson, Henry Cowell and many others. You can also read The Brakhages Lectures (1972) and view the short film Legendary Yarns and Fables: Stan Brakhage on UbuWeb.

Her Noise: Women in Experimental Music (2007): A video documenting the development of the Her Noise project between 2001 and 2005 and features interviews with artists including Diamanda Galas, Lydia Lunch, Kim Gordon, Jutta Koether, Peaches, Marina Rosenfeld, Kembra Pfhaler, Chicks On Speed, Else Marie Pade, Kaffe Matthews, Emma Hedditch, Christina Kubisch and the show's curators, Lina Dzuverovic and Anne Hilde Neset. The documentary also features excerpts from live performances held during the Her Noise exhibition at South London Gallery by Kim Gordon, Jutta Koether and Jenny Hoyston (Erase Errata), Christina Carter, Heather Leigh Murray, Ana Da Silva (The Raincoats), Spider And The Webs, Partyline and Marina Rosenfeld's 'Emotional Orchestra' at Tate Modern. Her Noise celebrates the occasion of Electra, the London-based arts agency, new partnership with UbuWeb.

/ubu Editions, Third Series (Spring 2007): Edited by Danny Snelson. UbuWeb is pleased to present the latest installment of our ongoing series of full-length e-books. Titles for this series include works by Steve Benson, Maurice Blanchot, Mairéad Byrne, Terence Gower & Mónica de la Torre, Dick Higgins, Bernard Nöel, Severo Sarduy, Claude Simon, Rosemarie Waldrop, Robert Wilson, and Monique Wittig. This new series of /ubu editions presents eleven out-of-print works from 1957 to 1994 - and also includes three newer titles (1999-2007). Of the historical republications, there are three works of poetry, three works of prose, one opera libretto, one work of critical theory, and one manifesto - though each piece blurs these genres. Seven were written in English, four appear in translation, and one is bilingual. Two authors could be considered language poets, two are associated with Tel Quel, one arguably initiated Fluxus, another arguably initiated the new novel. Four are women, nine are men. One title was changed for its /ubu publication.

Patti, you obviously have a readership and audience outside the academy. That's incredible. I don't. Simple as that. It's not my choice, but instead happens to be where the reception of my work takes place. I don't receive any awards or honors from the academy for my work; I've never been to the sort of "Pigpen" ceremonies you talk about. Rather, I exist only because my books are studied and written about there. So, I'm grateful for that: if it wasn't for the academy's reception, I'd have no reception at all.

Reader Brian sez:
Do you actually believe the academy controls poetry in America?

Nope. I don't. I know that there are many scenes out there that thrive outside the academy. However, my scene isn't one of them.

Staffer Michael sez:
As thousands of students / instructors each year both enter and leave the academy, what prevents them from maintaining an academy-like relationship to your work once they are no longer an "official" part of the academy?

Your comment reminds me of a John Cage story. Cage said that his audience was perpetually students, reason being that students grow up, leave the academy to enter the real world, the result being that, consumed with practical matters, they drift from art. In my experience, I've found Cage's take on this to be a pretty good explanation of why my work stays in the academy.

Patricia sez:
You see, Kenneth Goldsmith is going around telling people I don’t exist.

Absolutely not. I would never presume to speak for you nor anyone else, Patricia. I've never told anyone what to think about you. Instead, what I said was that without the academy, as a poet I don't exist. I don't see you anywhere in that equation.

Kenny

Kwame,

Difference, indeed:

http://poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2007/05/kenneths_goldsmith_recent_blog.html

vs.

http://poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2007/05/kwames_dawes_recent_blog_about.html

Might be worth further discussion.

And, dear, most of my hair has already fallen out. Another curse, please. (smile)

Luv,
Kenny G

Kwame, I never said that nor do I believe it. Instead, I quoted Brian Eno as saying, "Art is everything we don't need to do," in which Eno was addressing the activity of making art. The results of that art, however, are another matter and, yes, it can and does affect lives. Linton Kwesi Johnson, though, I contend has much more of an influence as a politically-based musician-poet than he would if he were just a poet as music precipitates change more effectively than does poetry.

That said, I am of the mind that there are two models, both effective: the Ginsbergian and the Cageian. Ginsberg took his poetry to the streets and into the media to great effect; Cage refused the streets and, as an anarchist rejected the idea of protesting the US government on the grounds that such actions ultimately support a governmental system -- any governmental system -- by participating in it. Instead, his was a praxis-based resistance, one that emphasized disengagement as a model of change. He was despised in the more radical circles for this and was accused of being a bourgeois formalist.

The problem with Ginsberg (and one could add Abbie Hoffman or Bob Marley) is that they were so cooperative with the media that they were ultimately usurped and co-opted by it: "Allen Ginsberg wore khakis." In Marley's case -- and I'm speaking as an American here (I know as a Jamaican you feel differently) -- his politics lead to nothing more than another bong hit.

I felt allied with the Cageian approach for many years: I haven't voted since my early 20s with the hopes that if I enough of us didn't vote, the system would collapse. Wishful thinking, I know. But with the crimes of the current administration and the blood on its hands, I have no choice but to take a Ginsbergian route of engagement.

This might seem too facile, but I feel that whatever one does in their art is a political expression. Politics in art are simply unavoidable. I'm more interested in the oblique than I am in the direct, feeling that what we see in our peripheral vision is more substantial than that which we see coming head-on. At least it's been that way for me.

Without the academy, as I poet I don't exist. I have almost no readership (thinkership) outside the academy. This is not a choice of mine: it's is a condition that preceded my arrival onto the writing scene, fostered by numerous cultural conditions in the States -- primarily by the precedent set by the warm reception of Language Poetry by the academy in the 80s. As a result, since then, innovative or experimental writing lives only in the academy.

I'm curious how this works with other ways of writing. Thoughts on your relationship to the academy?

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 machine that makes the text. This kind of writing is not theoretical or illustrative of theories; it is intuitive, it is involved with all types of mental processes and it is purposeless. It is usually free from the dependence on the skill of the writer as a craftsman. It is the objective of the author who is concerned with conceptual writing to make her work mentally interesting to the reader, and therefore usually she would want it to become emotionally dry. There is no reason to suppose, however, that the conceptual writer is out to bore the reader. It is only the expectation of an emotional kick, to which one conditioned to Romantic literature is accustomed, that would deter the reader from perceiving this writing.

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 people who are there to hear me read are there to hear me read and this means that they care about the work they are going to hear. There is something affirming about this. But a reading for me has nothing to do with a series of experiences that are rooted in my childhood.

Slips of the Tongue (MP3)
Music by The Who
Recorded at the WFMU studios, Jersey City, NJ, June 21, 2006 (MP3)

An old joke goes:

Question: "What's the best line of any poetry reading?"
Answer: When the reader says, "And my last poem will be..."

I seem to have less and less patience for poetry readings these days. From Language to slams, if I had my druthers, I'd prefer never to have to go to another reading again.

UbuWeb is pleased to present our occasional but substantial ongoing series of full-length e-books, called /ubu Editions. Titles for this series include works by Steve Benson, Maurice Blanchot, Mairéad Byrne, Terence Gower & Mónica de la Torre, Dick Higgins, Bernard Nöel, Severo Sarduy, Claude Simon, Rosemarie Waldrop, Robert Wilson, and Monique Wittig. This new series of /ubu editions presents eleven out-of-print works from 1957 to 1994 - and also includes three newer titles (1999-2007). Of the historical republications, there are three works of poetry, three works of prose, one opera libretto, one work of critical theory, and one manifesto - though each piece blurs these genres. Seven were written in English, four appear in translation, and one is bilingual. Two authors could be considered language poets, two are associated with Tel Quel, one arguably initiated Fluxus, another arguably initiated the new novel. Four are women, nine are men. One title was changed for its /ubu publication. Series editor: Danny Snelson. All e-books are entirely free.

Full descriptions, links, and list of titles below the fold...

View from my writing desk.

Patricia says "I want to be a major poet!" I do too. What does ambition mean in this field, arguably a field of diminishing returns?

John Cage "The Norton Lectures," Harvard, 1988-89 [MP3]

1. Q & A, Part I
2. Q & A, Part 2
3. Mesostic I-VI Part I
4. Mesostic I-VI Part 2

Kenneth sed: (referring to this post)

Kwame, It's clear to me why you feel the way you do: you're getting paid to blog here. As Brian Eno says, "Art is everything we don't need to do." Blogging here is something you must do (at least for three months), hence it ain't art. -- Kenneth

Kwame sez:

Kenneth, you have to be wrong, I think. The day getting paid for art someone disqualified art is the day we will have to dismiss most of the great works of art of western civilization. Anyway, I am not blogging for the money--let's not forget, the amount can't come even close to the word count of my obsessive output. Not sure about you, but I NEED to do art.

Eno is wrong, even if he is clever and even if his work on Paul Simon's new album was a touch of brilliance that has given Simon yet another life. He is wrong about art if that is what he