I witnessed as a lurker Kent Johnson being thrown off this list, and other
lists, by the people who seem to believe they have a divine right to
control opinion on mailing lists. I can understand the list police have
an agenda. I don't understand the silence of those who must have also
witnessed those events.
KJ was was making fun of bourgeois values. i thought subscribers to
this list would find his "Poetry as Architecture" posts extremely amusing
and interesting. i was astonished by the reaction of poets i considered
beautiful people. i stll find it astonishing that poets can be so opposed
to the very thing that poets should find interesing.
On Sun, 27 Sep 2009 13:38:33 +0100
Tim Allen <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> Sean, I don't detect 'bourgeois values' in Kent's work. David B said
>> that, not me. It is true that I find Kent's work problematic, but I
>> think that is in the ways it is supposed to be 'problematic', if you
>> know what I mean.
>> I was simply following up on David's use of the word 'bourgeois' to
>> see if he was talking about something that I've come across too, with
>> names that haven't been mentioned and probably won't be.
>>
>> Cheers
>> Tim A.
>>
>> On 27 Sep 2009, at 13:31, Sean Bonney wrote:
>>
>> > yeh, totally, Rich. I'd say Kent was one of the American writers
>> > least deserving of being called 'bourgeois' (thanx for the info on
>> > his actual political activites, I didn't know that).
>> > and Tim, what are these 'bourgeois values' you can detect in Kent's
>> > work?
>> >
>> > http://abandonedbuildings.blogspot.com/
>> >
>> > --- On Sun, 27/9/09, richard owens <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> >
>> > From: richard owens <[log in to unmask]>
>> > Subject: Re: 'Day' by Kent Johnson
>> > To: [log in to unmask]
>> > Date: Sunday, 27 September, 2009, 1:21 PM
>> >
>> > SEAN &C:
>> >
>> > respuesta: Kent as bourgie bastard ...
>> >
>> > further clarification re Kent's community college / literacy work: i
>> > see Kent's unrelenting attacks on contemporary "avant-garde"
>> > practice (i.e. flarf, con-po, lang po) as an important extension of
>> > his earlier work around social justice issues, cultural politics,
>> > etc -- & i think Yasusada, Lyric Po After Auschwitz & his other
>> > guerrilla projects make this pretty clear (precisely in spite of the
>> > ambiguity of those projects.
>> >
>> > ----------------------> a conversation worth having i think.
>> >
>> > ........richard owens
>> > 810 richmond ave
>> > buffalo NY 14222-1167
>> >
>> > damn the caesars, the journal
>> > damn the caesars, the blog
>> >
>> > --- On Sun, 9/27/09, richard owens <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> >
>> > From: richard owens <[log in to unmask]>
>> > Subject: Re: 'Day' by Kent Johnson
>> > To: [log in to unmask]
>> > Date: Sunday, September 27, 2009, 7:44 AM
>> >
>> > SEAN &C:
>> >
>> > it's also worth adding that a good deal of Kent's work over the past
>> > 30 years has been given to issues of literacy, social justice &
>> > economic inequality -- i.e. he _chooses_ to teach Spanish at a
>> > community college (w/ a PhD on Creeley &c) vs. competing for a
>> > "successful" hackademic career; he worked teaching literacy in
>> > Nicaragua during the Sandinista Revolution, edited an anthology of
>> > Sandinista poetry, etc.
>> >
>> > rich ...
>> >
>> > ........richard owens
>> > 810 richmond ave
>> > buffalo NY 14222-1167
>> >
>> > damn the caesars, the journal
>> > damn the caesars, the blog
>> >
>> > --- On Sun, 9/27/09, Sean Bonney <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> >
>> > From: Sean Bonney <[log in to unmask]>
>> > Subject: Re: 'Day' by Kent Johnson
>> > To: [log in to unmask]
>> > Date: Sunday, September 27, 2009, 7:24 AM
>> >
>> > David, it looks pretty clear that Kent's work is a satire on Kenny
>> > Goldsmith. Second, this is the second time in as many weeks that
>> > you've accused someone of being "bourgeois", neither time with much
>> > justification. Whats the problem?
>> >
>> > http://abandonedbuildings.blogspot.com/
>> >
>> > --- On Sun, 27/9/09, David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]>
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> > From: David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]>
>> > Subject: Re: 'Day' by Kent Johnson
>> > To: [log in to unmask]
>> > Date: Sunday, 27 September, 2009, 6:02 AM
>> >
>> > My, Kent's come on. I used to know him before he became a famous
>> > bourgeois writer, you know, he even once suggested we collaborate,
>> > but I never got him to specially sign anything. I guess though I
>> > would have had to pay for that privelige.
>> > One thing, he is a bit out of date, the art of plagiarism by middle-
>> > class authors was long ago perfected by Messrs Chaucer and
>> > Shakespeare. My love to him and his non-ego.
>> >
>> > David Bircumshaw
>> >
>> > Author of 'If It's On the Internet, It Doesn't Exist'
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > 2009/9/26 Jeffrey Side <[log in to unmask]>
>> > 'Day' a new work by Kent Johnson:
>> >
>> > http://www.digitalemunction.com/2009/09/22/advertisement-kent-
>> > johnsonsday/
>> >
>> >
>> > Price: $21, plus ship ping and han dling. ($250 for each of ten num
>> > bered
>> > copies signed by the Author, no charge for ship ping and han dling.)
>> > All
>> > copies come with spe cially designed, affixed stick ers (on cover,
>> > back
>> > cover, title page, spine, etc.) to impart author ship, copy right,
>> > blurbs,
>> > and co-​production.
>> >
>> > If the 836-pp. Day estab lished Kenny Gold smith as with out a doubt
>> > the
>> > lead ing con cep tual poet of his time, the 836-pp. Day by Kent John
>> > son
>> > may well be remem bered for nudg ing the pol i tics of Con cep tual
>> > Poetry
>> > out of blithely affir ma tive, insti tu tional fram ings, and into
>> > truly nega
>> > tional crit i cal spaces.
>> >
>> > –Juliana Spahr
>> >
>> >
>> > Recent trends in tech nolo gies of com mu ni ca tion have already
>> > begun to
>> > sub vert the roman tic bas tions of “creativity” and “authorship,”
>> > call ing
>> > into ques tion the pro pri ety of copy right through strate gies of
>> > pla gia ris
>> > tic appropriation… Such devel op ments have caused poets to the o
>> > rize an
>> > inno v a tive aes thet ics of “conceptual literature” that has begun
>> > to ques
>> > tion, if not to aban don, the lyri cal man date of orig i nal ity in
>> > order to
>> > explore the poten tials of the “uncreative,” be it auto matic, man
>> > ner ist,
>> > aleatoric, or ready made, in its lit er ary practice… Such activ ity
>> > (employ
>> > ing self and ego-​effacing tac tics via uncre ativ ity, uno
>> > rig i nal ity, appro pri
>> > a tion, pla gia rism, fraud, theft, and fal si fi ca tion as its pre
>> > cepts) has
>> > become one of the most rad i cal, if not one of the most pop u lar,
>> > limit-​
>> > cases of the avant-​garde at the advent of the mil len nium.
>> > With Day,
>> > Kent John son claims his place as one of the major fig ures of this
>> > new
>> > writ ing, show ing, in single move, how Con cep tual Poetry has been
>> > nearly forty years behind the pol i tics of Insti tu tional Critique.
>> >
>> > –Chris t ian Bök
>> >
>> > As he once asked, at the blog of the Poetry Foun da tion (though with
>> > what seems in ret ro spect a disin gen u ous banal ity), “Nearly one
>> > hun dred
>> > years after Duchamp, why hasn’t appro pri a tion become a valid, sus
>> > tained[,] or even tested lit er ary prac tice?” Here now, Kent John
>> > son
>> > wagers the query with a vengeance, brazenly upping the ante of Uncre
>> > ative dialec tic by throw ing down before us a ready made ges ture
>> > that is
>> > noth ing but dizzy ing in the syn the sis of its con cep tion: a fla
>> > grant appro
>> > pri a tion of a Con cep tual work’s Author ship and Copy right, cat
>> > e gories
>> > which them selves had been branded into this same text, in fla grant
>> > appro pri a tion by another K (yes, me), in first, anti thet i cal
>> > instance.
>> > Thus, here at Boring Ranch, in gamble with a gambol, he claims all the
>> > cow chips, one could say, with the sear ing, aster isked irony of a
>> > double-
>> > K smok ing iron. His Day emerges hot and bright from the dead-
>> > ​dark of
>> > an inno cent pre-​dawn, a sort of authen tic After life that
>> > rises from
>> > the “orig i nal” sim u lacral body in which it had lain (latent and
>> > expec
>> > tant). As in the best of Sher rie Levine, but more rad i cally
>> > still, it sum
>> > mons us, now, that we might think harder in its sudden light. Indeed,
>> > Kent Johnson’s Day stands as the first Con cep tual ges ture of its
>> > kind in
>> > the his tory of Amer i can poetry: An open, lit eral theft of an
>> > entire “book,” exhib ited with out shame, as a new and strange Work of
>> > Art in our Museum of Modern Poetry. I can only tip my hat.
>> >
>> >
>> > –Kenny Goldsmith
>> >
>> > Order from BlazeVOX Books. Orders also avail able in the near future
>> > from SPD and Amazon
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > David Bircumshaw
>> > "A window./Big enough to hold screams/
>> > You say are poems" - DMeltzer
>> > Website and A Chide's Alphabet
>> > http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk
>> > The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
>> > Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
>> > Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/david.bircumshaw
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
--
life's a beach
|