Don't waste time on excrement of the brain dead. With apologies to my friends who think otherwise, Conceptualism is only a diversion to avoid confronting social ills, so the 1% can continue to screw the rest.
Here is an easy litmus test. Which gives you more food for soul and mind, reading the book-size, one-sided record of a week of utterances from Kenneth Goldsmith (Soliloquy) or this one short triolet?
God?
– Harvey Stanbrough
If you are there, bequeath a gentle snow
to blanket grass and hills and trees and us,
the weary ones who really need to know
if you are there. Bequeath a gentle snow,
and let it drift to comfort us below
these endless marble rows, victorious.
If you are there, bequeath a gentle snow
to blanket grass and hills and trees and us.
(From Beyond the Masks)
To write poetry, you need to live in a real world. Read Anthony Hecht.
Prose realism, anyone? Here are some perspective-giving reading suggestions off the top of my head. Past, present, future settings in no particular order.
The Bonfire of Vanities – Tom Wolfe
Main Street. It Can't Happen Here. Elmer Gantry. – Sinclair Lewis.
The Handmaid's Tale. – Margaret Atwood.
Ship of Fools. – Katerine Anne Porter.
Dickens. Zola. Feel free to add.
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