Your shopping lists might be publishable.
 

Remember the threads on Poetry's Flarf issue and the New Yorker's My dick is an elk or sumpen like that.

Well, check this out:
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/p...th_int erview

Against Expression": Kenneth Goldsmith in Conversation

PS I don't know how to do that little link hide thingy. I hope this doesn't stretch our screens.

Blimey, Janice, I was starting to lose the will to live, reading this :eek:

Just when you think things can't get any worse, you find interviews
with guys like this in respectable places. As the saying goes, no matter how cynical you get, you can't keep up.

I have, however, thought of a title for my next book:

"SPAM: Poems Deleted from my E-Mail"

I first read the title of this thread to read, "Your shopping lists might be punishable." :D

Just point your mouse to the left of Goldsmith's shin and you can find an alternative (entertaining and enlightening) interview with Richard Wilbur.

Having read Goldsmith's opening sentence, "The best thing about conceptual poetry is that it doesn't need to be read", I'm quite happy to take him at his word. And after a quick scroll down the page, the same goes for the interview. Life is just too short, after all. It's too short, also, to spend time getting upset about the fact that such an interview appears on a reputable site.

For art from a putative shopping list, try to find "Receipt" by Big Poppa-E.

Cheers wkg
There's no accounting for taste

It's all so liberating, man.

Yeah, but two paragraphs into Wilbur, and I went right back to Goldsmith.

RM

Yeah, I'm sticking with Goldsmith too. You don't even have to read him. I'm enjoying it tremendously.

Cupped with hands of skill,
How clear their voices ring,
Containing passion still,
Who cared enough to sing.

xxx- William Meredith,
xxxxTo a Western Bard Still a Whoop and a Holler Away From Poetry

Based on the riveting insights in those first two paragraphs, I'm not sure I have to read Wilbur anymore to be awash in reverence. ~,:^)

Well, let's agree, Rory, that with this stuff from Goldsmith and Wilbur, along with the gibberish on Ahkmatova by Forche (see "The Discerning Eye"), Poetry has mastered the 21st century art of coaxing the bullshit out of otherwise very interesting people. How our heroes fall for it I'll never understand, but they nonetheless leave us are marked by their witness for eternity.

Thanks, Poetry. Thanks for nuthin.

I shall also be publishing subtly altered versions of Ricks poetry. Finally, a career.

Good for you! My concept is that I'm enjoying, actually luxuriating, splashing about in fact, with not reading him.

A deeper concept than that even is that my things unsaid map exactly onto his things said, and vice versa, so that the interested public can get two for the price of one, and free at that. He is a assertive vacuole.

Dan....A career? For you or for me?

But, seriously, I'll take what I can get.

Conceptually we can become a single entity and publish a volume of Dan Mullin (or Rick Breene) mumbling to himself for a week. In IP of course.

Rick, I'll make no great claims for the interview with Richard Wilbur; it's not the best one he's done (there's a whole book of them, and they're well worth reading), and there are many little things he's said elsewhere, but I guess at 88 that's forgivable. However, if you're interested in his poetry it does throw some interesting little sidelights on it - particularly the influence of Frost and Bishop. It is undeniably a low-pressure interview and it's not going to mean much to anyone who's never read Wilbur and who has no wish to do so.

Maybe that's also true of Goldsmith's interview - but then he says himself that he's unreadable, and so...

Oh, dear. I thought it was a spoof and I laughed like a drain.

After not reading this, my delk is an ick.

I know conceptual visual artists, and their egos are monumental. They take themselves and their art so seriously, because there is little or nothing to the art itself, the art IS the artist and his/her ego. But in visual art you do have to see the line or dot on the canvas or the pile of bricks on the floor.

The interview is brilliant: Not only don't you have to read it, you don't have to write it, you just have to BE a conceptual poet, take yourself absolutely seriously and have no sense of humor or of the absurd.

There is a small but growing herd of delk, Andrew, and I am one of them.

Ed


PS - A few questions I wish the interviewer had asked Mr. Goldsmith: (1) You do realize how appallingly silly and narcissistic that sounds, don't you? (2) I gather that you are completely stuck on yourself, but what's in it for us to be stuck on yourself? (3) Your thoughts, please, on the tale of the Emperor's New Clothes.

I thoroughly enjoyed the interview.

Ed writes: "(1) You do realize how appallingly silly and narcissistic that sounds, don't you? (2) I gather that you are completely stuck on yourself, but what's in it for us to be stuck on yourself?"

Sorry, Ed, but I think most of the response to KG on this thread are more full of themselves than anything that he says in the interview. If anything, he gives himself and his contemporaries a bit too much credit for something that has been going on for a very long time. But in general he seems to have a light touch and a good sense of humor. And there is no denying that ubiquitous technology has given a shot in the arm to conceptualism in all its forms, especially the verbal. One can surrender to that fact or one can resist it: but to ignore it with shock and outrage is to remove oneself from the history of thought and creation entirely.

I am not going to take the bait here and start a flame war...but really folks, it's a mighty big sandbox and there is plenty of room for the kids playing in its far corners. Duchamp would be amused.

Fluxus lives!
Nemo

Wholier-than-thou?

Duchamp would be amused.

He is probably laughing himself silly.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/a...evolution.html

Duchamp would be amused, and Cage would say, "been there, done that." Or maybe he'd say nothing for 20 minutes.

Goldsmith is having a little fun with us. My response was somewhat akin to Ann's. And, Jesus Christ, he's not boring!

And there is bullshit in it too! Something for everyone.

Gregory--I like Wilbur as much as the next guy, I guess. But those first two paragraphs! I hope I have more to talk about when I'm 90. But I blame the interviewer. My first question would be, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, we know you were born in New York City like it says in the bio we run every issue. But you grew up in North Caldwell, NJ! What the hell was that like?" I bet we'd learn something we never heard him tell us as he answered that question.

RM

NB: I should say that, if I could, I would go to the Museum of Modern Art in NYC today and remove maybe 8 or 9 Duchamps and pull some of the Rouaults, Kokoschkas, Noldes and Soutines out of storage to take their place. It isn't all about being amused! Or it shouldn't be. I would leave the other 20 Duchamps in place next to the 47 Picassos. Don't worry~,:^)

It's not really funny enough to be a parody and it's not interesting or original enough to stimulate any new ideas. It strikes me as pretty predictable post-modern whimsy. I think quaint and twee are really the best adjectives, like Christopher Robin doing his best to to sound like William Brown.

Rick, fair enough on the Wilbur interview. The interviewer could have been a bit more probing. Still, Wilbur never comes across as banal.

This is all a bit out of date. Joyce already wrote a masterpiece that nobody has ever read. And Borges invented a poet who spent his whole life writing Don Quixote AS IF IT HAD NEVER BEEN WRITTEN. His text, of course, was identical to... well to Don Quixote.

I think this guy has to be killed, don't you? It would surely be a justifiable homicide.

I guess it depends on how you see it, Nemo. I see the man as a leech who's stuck himself to the Muse of poetry and is enjoying a comfortable middle age.

If Goldsmith was doing this stchick for a year, then doing another stchick the next year, and so on, I’d probably buy a ticket to the show every time he came to town, since I enjoy flamboyant fakery as much as anyone. As far as I can tell, though, he’s been doing this for well more than a decade and shows no sign of ever stopping. It could be I have a deficient sense of humor, but that’s way too long to be considered a joke. It's a sheep fleecing station done up in amusing pastels. It's just my two cents, but I think Goldsmith is a stanza Auden might’ve included in his poem, ‘Atlantis.’

If you could show me why that part of the sandbox is such a hoot, I'd be obliged.

Best,

Ed

Ed,

Nemo's right on this one, I'm afraid. Yes, I get it, it's fun to mock, and one always expects a certain amount of that from certain quarters. But I think you'd be doing yourself a disservice by aligning yourself with one of those quarters in this case. Goldsmith, after all, is an accomplished guy, and most people here would lose an argument about poetics or aesthetics to him in under five minutes flat. In an embarrassing way. ;)

That's not to say that what he does is my cup of tea. It's not. But even his critics should respect what he's done at PennSound, laugh at the joke he pulled on Poetry, appreciate what it takes to keep a radio show going for 15 years, and admire the work of compendia at ubuweb. On that last one, especially, I say Vive le Père Ubu.

And while I'm not shocked that this thread happened, I am a little surprised Rick joined in. After all, he just persuaded us about the virtues of Soutine. I do agree with his estimation, but we should also remember that casual observers know Soutine best for his meat series. Heard of that one? The artist bought a whole side of beef (or at least a big old chuck), had it ported up to his rooms, and painted it as it, um, decomposed. Got several paintings out of it, too. Good ones. But it stank to high heaven. When it got so bad the neighbors started complaining, and eventually decided to call the police, he's reputed to have asked them 'What do they want? Good smells, or great art?' ;)

I'm certain that's not a direct quote, and maybe the story's apocryphal. I'm sure Rick can tell us. But I'm also sure the conversation in the stairwells at Soutine's apartment building in those weeks pretty much sounded like this thread... ;)

Thanks,

Bill

Bill,

I had that slab here three weeks ago! Your account accords with my slab and the various source stories.

RM

Meh. All the same, I'll agree to a trial before the hanging, at least. Is there a book of Goldsmith's poetry that anyone would recommend?

Ed

Rick, I do take issue with the idea that "it has all been done before". There are many traditions, and the conceptual/avant-garde has its traditions as well. We so-called formalists are content to repeat-in-the-course-of-building-on our own received traditions, so why should the avant-garde not be afforded the same right? The idea that the other guy can only do it once but that we can do it and improve upon it over and over again seems silly. Really, the knee-jerk negative responses to this sort of 'art' have changed less than the 'art' itself has. Andre Breton maintained right from the start that he wanted to destroy "Literature". The point is that the tools of this dismantling change over time, even if the intended rupture remains the same. To his credit in the interview, I think KG is advancing his own tradition by his references to how technology has changed the equation. Like it or not, the seeping of that technology into daily life has made even the non-artist's life the stuff of conceptual art.

Nemo

I was specifically refering to John Cage's piece where he sits before the piano and doesn't play (that was Cage, right? Or was it Glass?). As far as I'm concerned, nothing's been done before.

Anyway, I don't think I said it's all been done before, did I?

RM

and Cage would say, "been there, done that."

You put it in someone else's mouth, but that seemed to be the sentiment (as echoed by numerous others).
I only cited you because I knew you wouldn't bite my head off.

Nemo

As far as destroying art is concerned, I am convinced that creativity is very much a matter of destruction...or, certainly, the willingness if not the inclination to destroy.

Rick

NB, I really only meant to note that John Cage had done something along the lines of what I understood (uh, not having read the whole article) Goldsmith to be describing. Others have as well, in various contexts. But more, more, more! Each is a new work. (I can see how my comment came off as dismissive to the avant-garde--not my intent. But my visit to MoMA dream stands!)

It is all akin to the idea that the most beautiful picture can never be painted, the most beautiful song never sung, the best band never signed--they will never play a show! This is our incentive and motivating force. I have recently paid homage in these very pages to the blank canvas!~,:^/

That long queue of folks in front of that bookstore over there are lined up to buy the exciting new book of old weather reports that they don't need to read.

Give me a break, Bill and Nemo. The author may have many admirable qualities as a human being, but that isn't what is at issue here. The point is that Flarf, Conceptual Art, are not by any stretch of the imagination Art. It is leg-pulling. It has been done time and time again, and there is always someone to rush forward and say, "Now, w-a-a-i-t a minute. I feel something profound moving in my innards."

I am reminded of the many rooms in museums, empty but for one deep-thinking weirdo in front of a video of fractels, or of zoom-ins of various parts of a wrecked automobile, or of a man cutting his toenails and examining each one under a microscope. What is he thinking? How is he moved? Dunno, but I can't help believing that it is the same thoughts and emotions as those that he has when he opens his refrigerator door in the morning and again contemplates a moldy cheese.

PS. Though I have passed through many dim-lit museum rooms where a video is playing to one or none, I just made up those examples above. It strikes me though, that I am talented and could probably find a market for them.

But Nemo, it has all been done before. Formal poetry, too, of course. Of the making of many books there is no end, and all that jazz. Vanity of vanities.

The real question is whether it's worth doing again.

"Give me a break, Bill and Nemo."

I'll give my break to the deep-thinking weirdo any day. But never to the smug status-quo. Your broadly parodic paragraph really is embarrassingly corny.

N

Of course it's worth doing again, Stephen, until somebody gets it right.

Yes, Stephen, of course. But every artist or thinker has to decide that for themselves, and their 'doing it again' is their own answer the question. I don't want to get embroiled in my usual debate; I only spoke up because the other side gets such scant voice here--which gives the false impression that the answer to your question is unanimous as regards the worth of such experiments. Far from it. The split has always been there and will always be there. And once again: the tyranny of technology in this day and age may have made more converts to the other side than some of us realize.

That's all. :)

Nemo

Now. Nemo, don't ruin your chances of writing a favorable review when I have installed my video of me clipping my toesnails. That weirdo in front of it may be me. In fact, it probably will be me. Unless an aficionado elbowed his way past me in the queue outside.