What constitutes conceptual writing is still up for debate. For more than a decade, poets and critics have been claiming, reclaiming, or disclaiming the territory of conceptual writing. Who's in? Who's out? What are its limits? Isn't all writing somewhat conceptual? Or, conversely, doesn't the very act of writing preclude any kind of pure conceptuality? But in all the back and forth, two facts remain firm. One, that conceptual writing — however we define that term — has come to represent a new avant-garde in poetry and poetics. And two, that the term conceptual writing alludes to Conceptual art. Now that we're at least eight minutes in to conceptual writing’s fifteen minutes of fame, it’s time to query that relationship. Is poetry just 50 years behind the art world? Or are so-called conceptual writers up to something else? — Katie L. Price
Some of Robert Creeley's reel-to-reel tapes given to PennSound after the poet's death
Robert Creeley recorded Ted Berrigan’s May 6, 1968 reading given in Buffalo. And Creeley gave the introduction (although, unfortunately, whoever was monitoring the tape recorder while Creeley got up to speak, only caught 27 seconds of the statement). This is the earliest recording of Berrigan currently in the PennSound archive. After his death, Creeley’s many, many recordings have been made available through PennSound. This 1968 Berrigan reading, now newly available on PennSound’s Ted Berrigan page, is one of the most remarkable poetry events Creeley documented.
What is the relationship between Conceptual art and conceptual writing?
What constitutes conceptual writing is still up for debate. For more than a decade, poets and critics have been claiming, reclaiming, or disclaiming the territory of conceptual writing. Who's in? Who's out? What are its limits? Isn't all writing somewhat conceptual? Or, conversely, doesn't the very act of writing preclude any kind of pure conceptuality? But in all the back and forth, two facts remain firm. One, that conceptual writing — however we define that term — has come to represent a new avant-garde in poetry and poetics. And two, that the term conceptual writing alludes to Conceptual art. Now that we're at least eight minutes in to conceptual writing’s fifteen minutes of fame, it’s time to query that relationship. Is poetry just 50 years behind the art world? Or are so-called conceptual writers up to something else? — Katie L. Price
Clayton Eshleman: 'Wound Interrogation'
[From Penetralia, a new collection of poems, to be published by Black
Widow Press in 2016]
In Matta’s “Wound Interrogation,”
a Malangganesque robot thrusts a flattened palm against
a large pulpy vaginal wound hung before it.
1968 Ted Berrigan reading as recorded by Robert Creeley
New at PennSound
Robert Creeley recorded Ted Berrigan’s May 6, 1968 reading given in Buffalo. And Creeley gave the introduction (although, unfortunately, whoever was monitoring the tape recorder while Creeley got up to speak, only caught 27 seconds of the statement). This is the earliest recording of Berrigan currently in the PennSound archive. After his death, Creeley’s many, many recordings have been made available through PennSound. This 1968 Berrigan reading, now newly available on PennSound’s Ted Berrigan page, is one of the most remarkable poetry events Creeley documented.
A short interview with Nikki Reimer
Nikki Reimer is a writer concerned with emotional ecology. She has published books of poetry (DOWNVERSE and [sic]), chapbooks and essays. She also edits, including special issues of The Incongruous Quarterly and Poetry is Dead. Reimer is a member of the Writers’ Union of Canada, a past member of KSW, a contributing editor to Poetry is Dead, and a founding director of the Chris Reimer Legacy Fund Society. Visit her website (reimerwrites.com), or Calgary, where she lives.
67 Video Portraits, 2006-2010
main portrait page