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Geniuses of Tedium
The purely conceptual poem does not necessitate the direct experience of the words: this is about as radical a claim for something calling itself poetry as has been made in the present century. That the idea of pure conceptualism is radical in the field of poetry speaks volumes of the relative conservatism of poetry….Read More
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Putz-Art
Con Artist Those who saw my earlier post about Kenny Goldsmith’s latest foray into avant-stupidity may want to sign this petition on change.org asking Goldsmith and his madcap band of phonies to withdraw his call to “print out the entire Internet.” There is a term for his latest adventure, of course. You’ll find it in the title of this post.Read More
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Damn the Planet, Full Speed Ahead!
Clearcut Forest, OregonPhoto: Marli Bryant Miller Kenneth Goldsmith and some like-witted pals are inviting us all to join in “the first-ever attempt to print out the entire internet.“ Of course, that’s not his goal. His goal is self-promotion and a quasi-scientific interest in seeing how many suckers will respond. “What you decide to print out is up to you,” Goldsmith says (with, I imagine, a sly grin); “as long as it exists somewhere online, it’s in.” In the next breath, of course, he imposes his conceptualist restrictions: “We’re not looking for creative interpretations of the project. We don’t want objects.Read More
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China Doorknobs
Anthony Madrid is by far the most rewarding-to-read blogger on Harriet these days. One feels like each of his posts is a full bucket pulled up from a pouring brook: the taste is good and complex and one can’t forget that the brook is flowing on as one reads—that the bucketful is merely a sample. In this post, Madrid offers a wonderful quote from H. L. Mencken; I only wish he’d documented where it came from: The old-time poet did not bother with theories.Read More
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Flying the Flag
Reading this, it struck me that watching Kenny Goldsmith try to think is like watching Keanu Reeves try to act. The lack of basic skills is no bar to either man making a tidy income, because each has stumbled into a style of performance that requires no talent—a value-free type of entertainment that speaks both to the canny cynicism of their self-presentation and to the low expectations of their audience.Read More
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Fail Better
As he notes in the title to his post, Martin Earl fails here. But in satire, failure is success, just as—in the satire of literature that is the career of Kenneth Goldsmith—”uncreative writing” is the canny feint of the con man.Read More
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Stupidity Strikes Again at Harriet
Con man Kenny Goldsmith indulges his mania for the idiotic once more on Ruth Lilly’s dime with this Harriet blog post about what he calls “a terribly ballsy move”—the reproduction of copies of The Catcher in the Rye with only one change: author J. D. Salinger’s name replaced on the cover with the name Richard Prince. Who is Richard Prince? An überphony like Goldsmith, but with big bucks in his bank account.Read More
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Martin Earl on Günter Grass … and More!
Martin Earl Apropos of my earlier post on the controversial poem “What Must Be Said,” by Günter Grass, I want to direct all Birders to Martin Earl’s lucid Harriet post on the subject. It’s well worth pondering…. It’s also worth wondering why, with the single exception of Earl’s fine post, America’s most well-funded poetry-promotion engine, The Poetry Foundation, has managed to remain utterly silent on what is currently the world’s most famous contemporary poem.Read More
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Hapax Legomenon Redux
Harriet celebrates Poetry Month with this hilarious post by con man Kenny Goldsmith, in which he makes good on his promise of “uncreative writing” by quoting a vacuous, jargon-ridden exercise in what passes for criticism in the back alleys of academe. “Conceptual writing signaled the end of the era of individual voice,” opines Ms. Johanna Drucker. “Poetics of the swarm, mind-melding writing, poiesis as the hapax legomenon of the culture?” (No, that question mark is not an typo. It is in Drucker’s text and is as mysterious there as it is here.Read More
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Panem et Circenses Redux
Bill Knott’s post entitled “i told you so” consists of a single link, which leads to an article in The Independent that begins this way: For decades in art circles it was either a rumour or a joke, but now it is confirmed as a fact. The Central Intelligence Agency used American modern art—including the works of such artists as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko—as a weapon in the Cold War.Read More
Joseph Hutchison, Colorado Poet Laureate 2014-2019, has published 20 collections of poems and edited or co-edited three poetry anthologies. He currently directs two master’s-level programs for University College at the University of Denver: Professional Creative Writing and Arts & Culture Management. Joe lives with his wife, Melody Madonna, in the mountains southwest of Denver, Colorado, the city where he was born. 
