Conceptual Writing & Its Environs. New Strategies in American Poetry

One of the most powerful and surprising trends in new American poetry of the 21st century is conceptual writing. Finding both its home and origins in Kenneth Goldsmith’s website UbuWeb, this exciting new writing takes its lead from both 1960s conceptual art and also from recent post-conceptual artworks in all media. What does this mean for American poetry, and why has this movement taken hold?

Interest in conceptual writing is prominent among emerging writers in the U.S. Three new anthologies of conceptual writing are forthcoming, while 2008 saw several conferences that aimed to define and explore this new movement, including the Conceptual Poetry and Its Others symposium last Spring at the University of Arizona (http://poetrycenter.arizona.edu), curated by critic Marjorie Perloff.

Some of the concerns and strategies employed in conceptual writing include the use of procedure, appropriation, sampling, and digital technologies. Most of the poets and writers who identify most deeply with this movement are from the post-1960s generation, ranging in age from 25–50. Conceptual writing practice in the last decade has displayed a great range, from Kenneth Goldsmith’s “Day” (a re-typing of a day from “The New York Times” newspaper, margin-to-margin, with every stock quote and advertisement), to Kim Rosenfield’s feminist poems in “Good Morning Midnight” (a combination of appropriated 19th-century medical texts with contemporary fashion magazine language). Some of the more accomplished conceptual writing poets in the U.S. and Canada include: Kenneth Goldsmith, Juliana Spahr, Kim Rosenfield, Judith Goldman, Christian Bok, Darren Werschler-Henry, Caroline Bergvall, Yedda Morrison, Brian Kim Stefans, Vanessa Place, and Rob Fitterman.

There are many reasons why this new writing has quickly attracted so much interest among both poets and critics. At the turn of the new century, many poets echoed the conversation in the other arts that ours was an age of inventory and not invention. Many poets and writers began to work with extant materials to highlight this millennial shift in thinking. Additionally, the great communication invention of our era, the Internet, is a language-based tool and for many poets the opportunity to engage in this technology has been more fully realized by using conceptual writing strategies. In this way, poets have found a new vocabulary, and new ways to carve a path through the new technology and the information that it promises. This moment is not unlike how the Pop artists of the 1960s appropriated the new visual language of the television—conceptual writers have recognized a similar opportunity today.

The literary program is supported by the Embassy of the United States of America in Berlin.