Boredom? How very fin de siecle. That other siecle.

Jeff, please stop forwarding this stuff. He's either on the list or 
not. As I told you backchannel, Kent did exactly this--enlisting 
others to carry his messages--when first dropped from lists.

Mark

At 03:00 PM 10/5/2009, you wrote:

>Jeffrey Side wrote, kindly offering to send in a response by me to 
>recent posts here. It would be easier to post directly, of course, 
>but that doesn't seem to be possible.
>
>Just to say I'm a bit bemused by the many earnest comments (at 
>Poetics, at the other two major poetry lists, and at the initial 
>first announcement of the wok here [I just noticed the typo, I'll 
>keep it] 
><http://www.digitalemunction.com/2009/09/22/advertisement-kent-johnsonsday/#comments>http://www.digitalemunction.com/2009/09/22/advertisement-kent-johnsonsday/#comments) 
>
>that dismiss my new book as "trivial" in nature, as a "tempest in a 
>teapot," as a gesture devoid of "risk,"  and so on. You have to 
>admit: For a "publication" so trifling, the book sure seems to be 
>generating a lot of indignation!
>
>The thing is, these comments on the work's triviality are quite 
>correct and obviously so. And I am sort of disappointed that part of 
>its conceptual point seems to have been missed by so many. Alison 
>Croggon's "yawn," for example, is perfectly poignant, inasmuch as 
>she seems unawares that the Goldsmith wing of "Conceptualism" 
>feverishly advocates Boredom as a poetic principle! So why my book 
>would be dismissed because it out-bores KG's is beyond me. The muse 
>that paid me a visit, you see, *instructed me* to be boring and to 
>really go all the way, not just halfway, as with the case of KG's 
>dime a dozen neo-readymade move. My Day aims to be, precisely, a 
>dialectical advance in the concept of boredom. Which doesn't mean 
>it's original (well, OK, maybe it is a little bit), or risky, or 
>worth the paper it's not even written on.
>
>I hope that helps clarify things.
>
>Still, it's pleasing to see there are as many poets expressing 
>enthusiasms about my book as there are those in a snit about it. 
>Today, for example, Charles Zito posted the following comment at 
>Digital Emunction, and I share it, eager that the many of you who 
>are avant-garde academics will use it as he plans to use it. Perhaps 
>after the full-page ad comes out next month, in a publication widely 
>available at your local chain bookstore, more of you will? I hope 
>so, as sales of the book (of which there already have been an 
>unexpected few!) will help the continuing work of BlazeVOX, to which 
>fabulous press I am donating all royalties. Anyway, here's what 
>Charles Zito wrote:
>
> >After watching a video on Kenny G, I wondered how far this 
> conceptualism, with its lack of concern for originality or 
> copyrights, could go. That it has resulted in this "reproduction" 
> is truly entertaining. I just wanted to let you know that, as a 
> result, your accomplishment will be discussed in my graduate poetry 
> workshop. Thought you might enjoy that knowledge.<
>
>Further, just as an informational note (and I promise I am not 
>making this up), I have heard in the past couple days that there are 
>tentative plans in the UK for the publication of a _Day Variorum_, 
>both texts, KG's and KJ's, in one volume, set in parallel columns 
>for ease of comparison. Hopefully, some of the hefty copies will be 
>adopted in future seminars at those new citadels of Conceptualism, 
>U. of Penn and Princeton.
>
>best,
>
>Kent
>
>

Announcing The Whole Island: Six Decades of Cuban Poetry (University 
of California Press).
Forthcoming in November 2009 2009.
To read more go to: http://go.ucpress.edu/WholeIsland

"The Whole Island is a masterwork of cartography: a map of what is, 
for English-language readers,
an almost unexplored territory, full of poets--at home and in the 
diaspora--whom we ought to know."
                                                                                 -Eliot 
Weinberger

"A definitive anthology guiding curious poets, literary scholars and 
teachers, and generations of
readers out of the shadow of ignorant, imperialist 'lockdown' 
surrounding the breadth and power of
Cuban poetry. [Weiss] provides a salient, comprehensive introduction 
covering the fascinating vidas
of individual poets, literary movements, political exigencies, and 
the vicissitudes of an ongoing cultural
struggle. But the imagination of the poetry rules. What emerges is an 
essential compendium to
world literature. Presente!"
                                                                                 -Anne 
Waldman