Talk To Me: Flarf vs Conceptual Writing
There is still an American Avant-Garde in poetry!
As part of the Jenny Holzer exhibition PROTECT PROTECT at the Whitney Museum, poet Kenneth Goldsmith organized a panel of eight poets associated with two living breathing movements in poetry — the Flarf Collective and Conceptual Writing. Goldsmith describes the new works as responses to our digital age, a “poetics of flux, celebrating instability and uncertainty.”
For the panel he staged a faux battle between the two movements, featuring poets Christian Bök, Nada Gordon, Kenneth Goldsmith, Sharon Mesmer, K. Silem Mohammad, Kim Rosenfield, Gary Sullivan and Darren Wershler. If you listen to the end, you can hear WNYC’s Pejk Malinovski speaking with these poets after the reading.
More: The new Flarf movement explained on Studio 360.
Comment: Do you agree with Kenny G’s explanation of the differences between Flarf and Conceptual Poetry? How would you explain it?
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