Conceptual Writing: A Worldview April 30, 2012: Conceptual writing and concrete poetry have a lot in common: both are / were international movements and both are / were based on the premise of not reading. By employing the use of icon-based imagery (poem as image), concrete poetry sought an international readership based on seeing rather than on reading. Similarly, once you "get" the idea of [...] by Kenneth Goldsmith

Letras Latinas: Building Literary Community April 27, 2012: As our poetry month (and time on Harriet) comes to a close, I wanted to reflect on an important program that continues to influence the visibility of Latino poetry in this country. If the poetry community at large seems tiny, imagine the Latino poetry community--it’s no degree of separation. Though ours is a virtual community that stays [...] by Rigoberto González

The New Aesthetic and The New Writing April 26, 2012: In advanced poetries, there was no postmodernism. Beginning with Mallarmé and ending with Language Poetry, the emergence of digital culture signified a break with modernism, replacing deconstructive tendencies with strategies informed by the workings of computers and the web: word processing, databasing, recycling, appropriation, intentional [...] by Kenneth Goldsmith

The Burden of Artists’ Crap April 23, 2012: Recently, I witnessed a heartbreaking sight: the selling off piecemeal of Jackson Mac Low's library at a flea market near my house in New York City. One Sunday afternoon, while rambling through the market, I saw a bookstall and, leafing through the stacks of books, I saw incredible things: every book by Dick Higgins's legendary Something Else [...] by Kenneth Goldsmith

Richard Prince’s Latest Act of Appropriation: The Catcher in the Rye April 19, 2012:   I had long given up Richard Prince for dead. Once a heroic and radical appropriation artist—one who granted a wellspring of permissions to the current crop of conceptual writers—over the years had morphed into a bloated, expression-based painter, churning out multimillion dollar canvases for a ravenous wealthy collectorship. His [...] by Kenneth Goldsmith

FAQs: Is It Hard to Get Published? April 11, 2012: I want to answer a question I've been asked quite frequently by young writers. They tell me they've been writing for a little while and they love writing and they want to know if it will be hard for them to publish their work. Yes, publishing is difficult. Or at least, publishing well can be difficult. And by publishing well, I mean [...] by Camille Dungy

Song of Myself(-Publishing): Let People Poems? April 5, 2012: Let People Poems is a Wordpress blog dedicated to social self-publishing. It refers to itself as “a community of contributors” and declares itself to be “a level playing field.”  There are no editors, and the site describes its rules as follows: -No contributor’s notes following your post. -Put your name next to the title of the [...] by Kathleen Rooney

Stop the presses! August 25, 2011: No, really! Please! There are too many books! So says the Atlantic’s Peter Osnos: BookStats 2011,the annual comprehensive report just released by the Association of American Publishers and the Book Industry Study Group, concluded that book sales, in terms of revenues and copies sold, have steadily increased in the period of 2008-2010. [...] by Harriet Staff

A Look Inside The Poetry Society of America’s Chapbook Series June 15, 2011: Over at wwword.com, Lucy Sisman has written a nice feature on the PSA's Chapbook Series, with a focus on Gabriele Wilson's gorgeous work. She is the sole designer of all the winning chapbooks in the contest. Executive Director of the Society, Alice Quinn, has this to offer on the series itself: “It’s a contest for emerging writers; we [...] by Harriet Staff

Judge not lest ye be Shivani June 3, 2011: Anis Shivani gives the first book contest model of poetry publishing the business over at Huffington Post. He writes in response to a feature from Poets & Writers, in which editor Kevin Larimer interviewed Stephanie G'Schwind, Michael Collier, Camille Rankine, and Beth Harrison, all editors who work at presses that run first book contests. [...] by Harriet Staff