I couldn't resist checking, and sure enough, someone has a YouTube video of clipping his toenails.

Contemplative high art, to be sure.

Actually, Rick, that's a good point, and one which I was going to make, albeit in a different way. To wit: Goldsmith gives the game away in his interview. He's just too damn coherent. He leaves one with the sneaking suspicion that he wants to be understood and appreciated after all. I mean, why doesn't he just make barfing chicken noises or pick his nose in silence? Or if that's too sarcastic for your taste, why doesn't he just, say, quote random snatches of prose out of context? Like this, maybe . . .

Poets.org: How would you explain conceptual poetry to a younger audience unfamiliar with the tenets of conceptual art?

Kenneth Goldsmith: Hans Heilman's version to be added soon. In Visigothic Spain, Merovingian France, and Viking Europe, slavery--if not always dominant--was never less than critical. If you are unable to load any pages, 高祖为人，隆准而龙颜. Le mot kran désignait en moyen-haut-allemand l'oiseau échassier.

Poets.org: Are there conceptual strains/models you find in classic works by poets like Homer or Sappho, Shakespeare or Keats? Or is the tradition grounded solely in the work of more postmodern writers like John Cage, Jackson Mac Low, Andy Warhol?

Kenneth Goldsmith: Includes a definition of constipation and information on how it develops, how it is diagnosed, and how it can be treated. St. Thomas Aquinas' entire masterpiece, in an easy-to-use format. Ο ίδιος θεωρούσε πως καταγόταν από αυτοκρατορική οικογένεια. I like purple much better than orange.

And so on. That would be much a more convincing demonstration, I think.

An objection anticipated: Does this mean that formal poets would have to give their interviews in rhyming, metrical verse? Well, if the point of formal verse was that it was out to "smash the constraints of prose speech" (or whatever--and yes, I recognize that natural speech is indeed quite another thing than "prose"), then I suppose there might be a consistency problem in falling back on prose the rest of the time. But if your declared program is "against expression," well . . . be more consistent, I say. Whence the need for explanation? Unless, that is . . . you have something you want to express after all.

Rick, I was going to quote Wolfe again earlier but I held off. Would you like to do it this time?

.

Wolfe said: Quality by design as a Japanese parasol might intercede on behalf of the Antipope.

I like it! But of course, as you know, the passage I was referring to is this:
Took me a moment to find it from last time round.

Wolfe's book--actually an essay that he illustrated--is the greatest indictment filed against the 20th century on record, and one of the most wonderful books written on art that I've read. I have indeed referenced it in these pages in the past. His target is pretty much the New York School/post WWII period (and onward), not the early-century avant-garde. The section you quote, Stephen, goes off into parts that I don't entirely agree with, but he nails it where he says that the Art Establishment (once the avant-garde) has created a system whereby the theory is the thing. Whereby the art itself is secondary to the word written around it. The idea that people have to read a book to experience art is fundamentally a 20th centry idea that reflects back on things like pointillism. The experience of the art becomes secondary to what you think you are supposed to know and what you seek to be told.

Another quote from the book that I have handy is Wolfe's response to a review written by Hilton Kramer of the New York Times published April 28, 1974.

"What I saw before me was the critic-in-chief of The New York Times saying…in short: frankly, these days, without a theory to go with it, I can’t see a painting."

Wolfe was referring to a review by Kramer of an exhibit at Yale called "Seven Realists" in which Kramer wrote:

Realism does not lack its partisans, but it does rather conspicuously lack a persuasive theory. And given the nature of our intellectual commerce with works of art, to lack a persuasive theory is to lack something crucial—the means by which our experience of individual works is joined to our understanding of the values they signify

Amazing. Sorry about the large cut-and-paste type. But it does support Kramer's critical hot air.

I think it gets a bit off topic for this thread, but the topic has kind of blurred and I love The Painted Word.

Way to go Kenny G! You've finally caught up with Lawrence Weiner.

QED

Oh, but Kenny, if no one buys your books, how will you get the money?

I bet he trades in conceptual money, conceptual haircuts, conceptual government.... Why stop at poetry and books!

You all do realize that there's something of a tradition in avant-garde art to make grandiose statements, in part, because they're funny, right? I suspect there's a certain sly hyperbole in many of the formulations used, a "Let's see if the normals get the joke. Hehehe."

Quincy, at Eratosphere there are no normals. :D

BTW, I just read a cool article and have forgotten where or I would quote it, but something to the effect that avant garde is passé nomenclature, to such extent that anyone who still uses it, isn't. :eek:

¡Abajo el vanguardismo! ¡Viva el shamguardismo!

Shopping lists? Woody Allen already did laundry lists.

Good one, Roger. And wasn't it Rossini who said: Give me your laundry list and I'll write an opera. Still nothing new under the sun.

"Oh, let there be nothing on earth but laundry"--Richard Wilbur

Nemo and Bill have a point that it's a big sandbox. I wonder, though, if Kenneth Goldsmith shares that view, and is equally magnanimous when he encounters the work of others outside his corner of the box. I don't know the man, but I bet he would feel perfectly free to dismiss, say, Nemo and Bill as backward-looking formalist hacks - whether in reviews, or in other ways having to do with publication, prizes and grants. Same with whatsisname who got all huffy here a while back and called everyone a bunch of nobodies because they had never appeared in the New Yorker. He didn't feel any particular need to open his mind to alternative points of view; in his mind, there was his way of doing it, and the wrong way.

I don't remember seeing a bunch of formalists in the issue of BAP that was edited by Lyn Hejinian, nor would it be reasonable to expect that. Artists are partisan. Eratosphere's membership is hardly unique in this regard. Yet when we behave the way most artists do, we are seen as narrow-minded bigots, whereas Lyn Hejinian is just doing her job. How nice it must be to belong to the group that's considered broad-minded by default, whether they really are or not.

I tend to like the "big sandbox" idea, personally, because I'm a coward, and I'd rather hear "not my cup of tea" than something that might really hurt my feelings. But not everyone takes the big sandbox view; those who most benefit from it, perhaps least of all.

And is the sandbox really all that big? Wasn't this thread originally about arts funding or lack thereof?

I'm also suspicious of this idea that someone can prove by logical argument, or by showing his credentials, that my aesthetic is wrong. That seems a bloodless view of art. Or maybe a Catholic view, as opposed to the Protestant "every man is his own priest." I am suspicious of these highly trained poetry priests - mostly male, of course - who want to stand between me and poetry, administering sacraments and granting indulgences.

Wrong.

Wrong.

Quincy: "I suspect there's a certain sly hyperbole in many of the formulations used, a "Let's see if the normals get the joke. Hehehe."

It's true that everyone's gone to the circus. Not so much Richard Wilbur, but certainly Goldsmith. We can't be afraid of the clowns, but we cant stay at the circus all our lives either. I just don't see sides in this thing.

But, Jesus Christ!:

I went to the right school, he knew my wife's family, I have many of his poems by heart, he praised my first volume, Robert (he let us call him that)....

Gimme the Flying Gambini Brothers!

RM

Rose said much of what I would think, if I were so thoughtful. Even when they make me gag or recoil, I don't find it difficult to forgive a good poet for bad prose or interviews, or even posing, largely because I'll forget all that -- it's the good poems I'll remember; the gold, not the dross. Has Goldsmith written good poems? If not, why is he being interviewed by Poetry?

Ed

I'm sure Rossini could make a fine opera out of a laundry list. But he would have to make it. This guy doesn't make anything. As I said, he needs to be killed or at least kicked. But I expect he'd like that - the kicking I mean.

Ed, et al. More background.

http://poetrycenter.arizona.edu/enew...oet_read.shtml

and

http://www.sibila.com.br/index.php/s...eptual-poetics

I can agree with that.

In most cases, when I read poetry I want to take anything I know about the poet himself out of the equation. Likewise with most art forms. Obviously the artist is worthy of the praise, derision or apathy that his art provokes, but when going in to the experience, I want there to be nothing in my mind but the art. So often does the artist color the perception.

Having said all that, I'm sure I'd think Goldsmith's work was the work of a pretentious, posturing agent provocateur regardless.

There's another aspect of onceptual poetry - and art - that hasn't been mentioned. It opens the door to any hack who can't write, can't paint, can't be bothered paying the dues to work at it - but wants to pose as a writer/artist/filmmaker/conceptualist because it will get him or her attention/money/fame/laid - and gimmickry requires much less effort or talent than real writing/painting/whatever. It cheapens the currency in which we trade. Goldsmith is not a fool, he appears to be clever and articulate and intelligent, and while I detest the one-trick-pony horseshit he gets away with, I suspect he knows exactly what he is doing, and is having a great time in he process. But for every Goldsmith there are 152 jerks doing the same thing. (Can I prove any of this? Of course not. But that's the point. It's a conceptual argument.)

Ah, but Michael, there's the respect that makes all of conceptual art into one giant piece of Conceptual Art that covers the entire Human Experience, since everyone fakes competence every day -- even if they are competent in one thing or another, everyone fakes the rest, so conceptual art is a microcosm of real life more than the sort of art you like, which can only be done well by a handful of people.

Personally, Roger, I can't even fake an orgasm. Once I get past that, I'll concentrate on faking competence. In concept, of course.

Ah, so here's the real question. After all, if there's room for everybody, abundance for everyone, what do we care what's going on in some distant corner? We can look over, say to ourselves 'that's interesting, but I want to do something else,' and be completely untroubled by it.

Now, before we actually get to the point, we should give these people their due. They are actually willing to make an aesthetic statement, to take a position. If we were to ask each other "what are your poetics?" how many of us would have a ready answer? Think about it. Take just a minute now, and describe your aesthetics. What do you write, why do you write it, what does it do, what's the goal? I dare you (not you in particular, Rose, everybody.) Even just fifty words. Less than this paragraph. Heck, use a hundred, if you need them. And if you're reluctant to do that in public, check Inferno, Canto III, lines 30-51... ;)

But back to our point. I was having a friendly discussion with a poet from here last month, over some really cheap wine. Seriously, it was awful stuff, and in plastic glasses. He turned from complaining about the wine to complaining about publications. I suggested he cast a wide net, but he rejected that idea. He said he had a narrow group of targeted venues, each of which meant something to him.

Mostly, they fell into two groups. First were the house journals, those where most of the people reading this would recognize most of the contributors' names: RR, LR, SCR, TT, etc. We all know what the list looks like. The second group contained what he considered aspirational journals, the kind with names people he met at literate cocktail parties would recognize. In fact, he scoffed at my idea of a wider net, suggesting such things were beneath him. And maybe they are, who am I to say?

My only point is that if his sandbox is small, it's because he made it small. For one reason or another, he's narrowed his scope. We all do this, I suppose, for different realms or different reasons. But it's in our power to make it bigger. We just need to take a different approach.

Look what happens every time someone points out an argument about aesthetics here. I can't imagine people whose poetics are further apart than Forché and Goldsmith, and yet they both received exactly the same treatment. I wonder if that doesn't say more about us than it does about them... ;)

Anyway, back to Rose's point. I think the sandbox is huge, and thriving, and there's room for far more than we think! All we need to do is expand our own boundaries... ;)

Thanks,

Bill

My poetics is my practice as a poet.

Eight words, Bill. Easy as pie. Or to requote something you quoted in a different discussion recently, "If you're explaining you're losing."

I happen to sympathize with everyone. I agree that the sandbox is big, and am grateful for it. I wouldn't have a published book (of palindromes) if not for it. On the other hand, I think Oulipo's successors aren't quite as inventive as they think they are, and I don't see the point in making (more than once) poetry not meant to be read. More disturbingly, I think that the fact that someone like Goldsmith can publish his shopping lists as poetry and I can't publish the list of all the words I misspelled last week (kudos, Janice!) says something sociologically disturbing about the relationship between power and aesthetics.

Here's a light (I don't take these things very seriously, really) take.

Conceptual Sonnet

A book-length poem that spins the New York Times,
a list of all the words I spoke one week,
the top ten hits when googling "Google's crimes"
arranged to make the riddle more oblique.

A palindrome not meant to be read twice
nor even once, indeed, a shopping list
selected with a rolling of the dice,
a pamphlet naming poets that I've pissed.

An ars combinatoria in reverse,
Oulipo's games redone without the wit,
a manifesto--verse is junk is verse--
that sees itself as loopy but legit.

My algorithms crank nine poems per hour,
no clearer demonstration of my power.

But it's in our power to make [the sandbox] bigger. We just need to take a different approach.

I play in the pretty well the whole sandbox. I write vers libre as well as formal verse in a variety of received and experimental forms, and am constantly proving new and/or unusual approaches and patterns. I dabble in surreal poetry and light verse, and even, at times, attempt to project deeper meaning in my work. I write political poetry. I write fiction, both flash and longer pieces, and essays. I write in more than one language and I translate.

Whether I do any of this well or badly will be judged differently by different ears/eyes. But I do it.

What I don't do, I hope, is to put up flarfific prefabs and conceptual facades unvaried as the movie set fronts of a wild west main street.

And because I build my castles throughout--and even exterior to--the sandbox, I make the claim that my critique of flarf and conceptual poetry is legitimite and justifiable; it isn't small-minded muttering or because I have an anal-retentive or xenophobic attitude.

It is not because I have no aesthetics, but because I have differing aesthetics. I see no reason to be apologetic about this.

Bill writes: "Ah, so here's the real question. After all, if there's room for everybody, abundance for everyone, what do we care what's going on in some distant corner?"

Actually I think the point is that, were it not for those far flung corners the entire sandbox would suffer. Historically speaking, those far corners have often enough pioneered certain techniques or views which have eventually been absorbed into the more mainstream center of the box. Case in point...Janice writes..."I play in the pretty well the whole sandbox. I write vers libre as well as formal verse in a variety of received and experimental forms, and am constantly proving new and/or unusual approaches and patterns. I dabble in surreal poetry.....". And yet many of those experimental forms that you may "dabble" in you owe to people who at one point or another took a rather theatrically extreme stand in one of the sandbox's far flung corners that earned them the opprobrium of those people playing in the center. "It'll be the death of our art" has been a cry heard throughout the centuries. No wonder it takes a more and more extreme gesture to deal the deathblow these days.

Reaction against tradition is a cyclical thing, and it serves tradition by calling it into question and thus re-fertilizing it with doubt. Radical manifesto is by its nature hyperbolic, so that once its excesses drain away what remains becomes more sand in the box.

I don't think my assessment is as unreasonable as all this outrage at particular renegades. The renegade view re-arises periodically because it is needed. And I didn't see anything in KG's interview that made it seems as if he were claiming to be anything but its latest free agent.

If KG thinks I am an asshole and doesn't not extend the same benefit of the doubt to me that I do to him, Rose, that is of no importance to me. That too is sand for the box.

Nemo

I think the real question is: should conceptual poetry be federally funded?

Well that opens the floodgates for a tide of one-liners!

Nemo

I think the real question is: should conceptual poetry be federally funded?

There is a current thread for that question. This thread is about aesthetics. I think.

I think it should be conceptually funded.




(Sorry Nemo -- that one was a lob across the middle of the plate...)

I know that you think aesthetic statements are very important, Bill, perhaps essential. If having one and being willing to say it out loud is a star you steer by, that’s fine with me: after all, you’ve written some amazing poetry. Although I’m uncomfortable using a term like that, I personally happen to have strong feelings about what I do and why I do it; so however blinkered or primitive it might sound, and however embarrassed I’d be to do so, I suppose I could make an aesthetic statement.

I don’t, though, because my personal feeling is that they don’t matter. I don’t read statements, I read poetry. If a poem is beautiful, I don’t care if it was typed by a million monkeys taking a holiday from writing Shakespeare. On the other hand, if a poem is terrible, why should I care about the poet’s aesthetics, any more than I would care about the stitching technique used in making the Emperor’s new clothes?

Honestly, I’m not even sure what sandbox we’re talking about. Is it the sandbox of Art, which is vast indeed, or the sandbox of Posing at Being an Artist, that arid wasteland where no birds sing? Has Goldsmith written a single good poem? That’s really how I’ll judge him at the end of the day: poet, or poser.

So: has Goldsmith written good poetry? If so, send in the clowns; I'll go along with the joke. If not, there’s always the 3rd Canto.

Best,

Ed

One interesting note, for me at least, in the Goldsmith interview is this:

Christain Bök is really almost being a scientist at this point. He's given himself a Ph.D. in Genetics, and he's doing genetic engineering and representing it as poetry.

I have a piece of a headline form the magazine I write for taped to the top of my computer monitor: Amateurs Attack

The whole headline expresses shock and disdain over the public—ie non-Ph.D. chemists—joining in the scientific debate. The stunning arrogance of the science community never disappoints!

So, here is Bök emptying his Accelrys® electronic laboratory notebook (ELN) into a poetry anthology. Are we going to be so stunningly arrogant as to object?

I say no. AMATEURS ATTACK! Vive le Douanier! Vive Jarry!

RM

Rick,

Your mention of chemists reminds me of Moguchaya kuchka, the Mighty Handful, the Five, who changed Russian Opera and music pretty much on their own. All amateurs: drunkards, gunnery officers, foresters, even a chemist! ;)

But they had goals, and they meant them. They took positions, and they weren't shy about stating them, they were mocked by the Musical Society, but offered open and articulate defiance!

Have to admire that kind of thing... ;)

Thanks,

Bill

Why is the ability to sum up one's aesthetic in 50 words or less a good thing?

Okay, I just answered my own question: Marketing. If marketability is the ultimate goal, than yes, you have a point.

Yes, that's true for you, but it's not realistic to expect most poets to see it that way. Some of them are trying to make careers, and competing for scarce resources. Some want their poetry to be read after they die, and getting published in Norton anthologies and the New Yorker and all that is an important part of the plan. It's a fight for survival. Only people like you, who have no ego, and people like me, who have no hope, are free to forget about all that.

I think the choice between consciously formulating a personal aesthetic as opposed to proceeding purely on an intuitive level is not all that black and white. Conscious & unconscious all play their part. And as poets I think there is no need to denigrate ideas which can be quite as beautifully formulated as poems--whether we agree with them or not. Sure some are great at talking more about things than doing them, and the opposite is true of others--so what? One is better than the other? I don't think it fair to penalize an artist for trying to think and speak clearly about their motivations; nor do I think it kosher to chastise someone whose praxis does not include such potentially narcissistic theorizing. Rather than criticize those who do things opposite to the way "we" do them, why not take the interdisciplinary approach and learn from them so that we can develop both styles of self-expression.

As far as the "non-producing artist", I am as uncomfortable with the phenomenon as others who I am disagreeing with up here. Yet the vast new world of virtual reality makes such a train of thought inevitable--and we ignore it at our peril. The fracturing of the world order that occurred during WWI led to a parallel refraction in the arts, a huge disruption with what had come before. The era when this so-named conceptualism first took hold of theory was another era of cultural shift, the 1960's. Our present technological revolution likewise seems bound to come with its own violent rifts, no? Art does not exist in a vacuum. I mean people are playing sports without moving from their chairs now, right--without moving a muscle other than their key punching fingers.

Personally, though I lament the loss of craft in all walks of life (I do make my living importing traditionally hand-loomed silks, after all), I am not comfortable with all this talk about the poem itself as the only important thing: I try to take a broader view of art than that--yes, consciously so--and think of the poem as the end product of another process, the evidence. It seems to me that focusing purely on the poem as object is more the marketing approach than using the poem as one piece of a wider psychological/philosophical mystery--merely the most tangible part of, if you will, a conceptual process. The possibility that it (the poem) is expendable, well, I'll consider it. I don't think I agree, but I'm not horrified by the thought; it doesn't make me angry at the bearer of that message.

And, Ed, it seems a little beside the point to insist on judging a conceptual artist on the basis of the material product he is blatantly rejecting the traditional valuation of. It's like telling a monk that has taken a vow of silence that you don't like his tone of voice. So should KG then not call himself a "poet'? Such a hair-splitting technical point seems moot.

I suppose the competition for resources and attention makes sense, Rose. And such a materialistic view can explain, I suppose, of the virulence of the reaction to KG. I'm not immune to envy, or the feeling that cultural approval is much too far from my own doorstep, ha! But on a deeper level there seems some sort of insecurity at work here as well: as if all our labor is to be proved pointless and not to be rewarded if some one can skirt it with such infuriating cleverness. I do think humility is the liberating answer to that conundrum--but I speak as one struggling with it constantly. If I sound as if accomplishments in this regard are otherwise, that is probably just evidence of my own deep insecurities and frustrations.

I trust I've said too much--%#&?

Nemo

Nemo,

Exactly. This is critical. It's not a bad thing to ask ourselves "What are we doing, and why are we doing it?" I think those are natural questions.

And as much as I don't wish to disagree with Rose, who I think very much deserves to be more hopeful, I don't think it's mere marketing when done honestly and with a sense of humility. I, for one, am constantly feeling my way through the dark, asking myself "Is this the right step? Is that the right direction?" It's the uncertainty that makes me wish to keep trying to answer these questions. :confused:

The idea that we can see everything in the practice is essentially a remnant of both Neo-Platonist Christianity and Romanticism with a big R. Even Frank O'Hara was making fun of that one in the 50's. Everything is in the poems, he said, laughing. Seeing the poem as detached object is from the 30's, something from the Fugitives and the New Critics. If we're still supporting those notions, we're as reactionary as we think other people think we are. :cool:

I'm firmly convinced that no-one here (especially not here) has an unexamined poetics. I'm persuaded everyone believes the unexamined poem is not worth writing. Otherwise it would all be Howls and Barbaric Yawps. ;)

So really, Nemo, I don't think you've said too much. Maybe this is even the start of a long overdue conversation...

Thanks,

Bill

(ps. Funny, my spell-checker doesn't like the word 'yawp' ... ;)

I would say, it is like telling a monk who has taken a vow of silence that, whatever it is he’s doing, he isn’t singing.

If a person who rejects the traditional and innovative ways to actually farm, and lines up beans in interesting ways instead: he can call himself a farmer, for all I care. But I won't call him a farmer unless he farms or tries to farm, or is letting things go fallow for a good reason, even if that reason is wrong in the end.

I don’t mind if someone tries to produce art, and fails. I will champion that effort. But as I see it, this man isn’t trying. He’s like the Hunger Artist. Try anything once: but if you keep doing it over and over for no reason, and know from past efforts nothing will come of it, you’re not trying any more.

I know I have prejudices and blindspots like everyone else, maybe more than most. However, if Goldsmith posted one of his ‘creations’ in Non-Met as a newcomer poet, you know that I would not be harsh, as long as I thought he was trying. That’s not what’s happening here. This is a refusal to try, and an attempt to portray that lack of effort as a quest.

Outrage is too big a word for what I feel when I come across posers like this. On most days, the closest word is ‘Meh.’ I recognize, also, that people like Goldsmith like to be kicked, as John says -- it creates publicity, interest, funding. I do feel frustration, however, when I think of the mischief he’s doing, whatever he may intend. I fear, and I think with good reason, that people will use this and other high-flown loop-de-loop, this non-producing ‘art’ and the theories aggrandizing it, as an excuse to not engage with the beautiful, the terrible, the strange and all else that can be found in poetry. Why look? They will say: it’s clear it’s all fakery. Why, just the other day there was this big bag of wind, this charlatan, Goldsmith: get a load of what he said. . .

This is a small place, and what we say here won't save 'Conceptual Art' from the philistines or topple the golden calf, either one. But, no: I will not call someone an artist when he or she is not producing art, and apparently has absolutely no intention to do so; it just doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t see a reason to demonize him or start a war, assuming I could even find my way to the battlefield, which is unlikely -- my guess is that Goldsmith is starving for attention, why feed him? But I also don’t see a reason not to call a thing what it is, or isn’t. The man doesn’t write anything that wants to be understood. Nothing he does or talks about seems to lead anywhere except to a portrait of himself with “Look at me!” printed in bold letters underneath. Artist? Poet? You are too generous, I think. But I tend to admire generosity, Nemo, and I do in this case, also, so go ahead; just don't expect me to join in.


Ed