John Cage and Music (Revisited)

As I read off the list of songs on my Spotify playlist, I remember just why it is that I chose section J8 over any other English 1102 section. It was a single line from the class description that had me from the get-go:

"...a pianist sits down at a piano and proceeds to not play music for 4 minutes and 33 seconds."

As an avid pianist of over ten years and a regular listener of recordings of the classical canon, I have to say that finding the word "piano" in any context tends to draw me to that subject. The irony of my selection was the piece in question; that of a man named John Cage. Four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence, in three movements, performed by either a full symphony or a solo pianist.

There were many classical composers whose later works strayed away from the conventional notion of music and experimented with different sounds, but John Cage took it a step further; either the dissonance was pronounced or (as in the case of 4’33”) the silence was. Cage’s music is based on the concept of aleatory (leaving some part of the music to chance.) Though primarily an experimentation with sound, Cage’s work is intentionally controversial in an effort to evoke a response from the audience, which subsequently contributes to the pieces themselves. It is clear that his was an unconventional method, both by classical and modern societies’ standards.

Yet, any attempt I make to argue against John Cage’s position in musical history as an “inspired genius” draws a blank. Why shouldn’t John Cage’s work be considered music, just as Kenneth Goldsmith’s is considered literature, albeit an obscure section of it? One might consider the John Cage movement analogous to the conceptual literature movement. Goldsmith was himself inspired down the road of conceptualism by John Cage’s essays, and once said, “[John] Cage gave me license to become an artist by doing less and saying less and fearing less.”

In some ways, however, the two are quite different. Music doesn’t inherently draw a parallel with literature, because the definition of music is more subjective. Ordinary individuals of today’s society hold stricter standards for the music they listen to than they do for what they consider to be literature. Literature encompasses anything and everything written, just as sound, not music, does everything heard.  

Sound is music, noise and everything in between. What people traditionally consider music is sound with certain restrictions on its frequency ratios. Noise is a random scattering of sound of all frequencies, and does not resonate well with the human brain. Music thus has the ability to appease and provoke at the same time, and at its core is its enjoyability. Granted, 4’33”’s silence is naturally soothing, but that can hardly be attributed to John Cage in the first place. And everything else John Cage is noise, right?

Well, we must consider the most important aspect with classifying art – peoples’ tastes as a function of time. John Cage’s work is simply not for our time; that doesn’t necessarily mean that it isn’t music. In the early 18^th century, Bach was utterly unimpressed by the concept of the new “piano”, and didn’t believe that it would ever catch on. Beethoven’s early compositions, leading into the romantic period, were not received well by the hardcore “classicists”. And I’m sure that Beethoven would gladly have his deafness back if he had a chance to listen to Eminem. Perhaps, then, John Cage’s work isn’t a statement of where music is so much as where it’s going. Music is trending towards unoriginality, and it’s only a bad thing to one of the “old is gold" mentality.

So is John Cage a musician? He may be dead, but I still answer: not yet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage http://www.studio360.org/story/310817-aha-moment-kenneth-goldsmith-john-cage/

http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~syverson/worldsfair/exhibits/hall2/yoshimura/music.htm

The Paradox of (Some Conceptual Art)

All art is ‘conceptual’ in the sense that it has a cognitive aspect: if it engages our senses but not our minds, it is mere eye or ear candy (not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's not ‘art’ in the relevant sense). A work of art is usually called ‘conceptual art’ if its sensory aspect is much less important than it is in conventional art, or even entirely irrelevant to it. Sol LeWitt's definition (1967) is, "In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art."

M.C. Escher's painting showing an example of conceptual art

That last part of LeWitt's definition seems specific to his own aims, but if we take the first part to be the essential part, there are plenty of other sorts of conceptual art besides his. More typical (as Wikipedia rightly goes on to note) is the idea that conceptual art is a particularly potent way for art to "examine its own nature." This idea has arguably been an aim of art since the beginning, at least implicitly, but in conceptual art it comes to the foreground and indeed pushes everything else off the stage entirely.

In conceptual art, we must ignore as irrelevant any (not surprisingly unexciting) sensory properties it may have, in order to better grasp its message about how to see or hear in artistically significant ways. For example, Tracy Emin's My Bed looks exactly like what it is (i.e., her bed), but to complain that it is not much to look at (which is true enough) would be to miss its point. However, if conceptual art is to comment on conventional art rather than replace it, it will at least sometimes need to leave in place the default idea that even when our concern is art's cognitive features, we approach it through experiencing its sensory qualities.

The paradox of conceptual art, then, is that in forcing us to think about the nature of art rather than simply enjoying it, it can shift our attention away from the very things we need to see or hear if we are to draw its conceptual lesson properly.

For example, in Tracy Emin’s My Bed she shows us her bed, in all its embarrassing glory. Rather than let us suck in all of the qualities of the bed like the type of wood used to build the frame, the texture of the blanket, the pattern of her linens or even the number of pillows on it and let us admire the beauty of its simplicity just like conventional art, she invites us to look at what is on and around bed: empty booze bottles, fag butts, stained sheets, worn panties (the bloody aftermath of a nervous breakdown). By presenting her bed as art, Tracey Emin shares her most personal space, revealing she is as insecure and imperfect as the rest of the world. But to imply all this, she must show us her bed which is in fact, what she doesn’t want us to see and that there is the paradox I mentioned above.

Another example of the paradox of conceptual art is Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte's, The Treachery of Images. The image shows a pipe and below it painted "Ceci n'est pas une pipe.", French for "This is not a pipe." Rather than let you admire the pipe itself as an art form, Magritte seeks to bring a separate realization to you by letting you know it is not a pipe but rather just a representation of a pipe. But to get you thinking about that concept that the painting is actually not a pipe, he has to show you that representation (exactly what he is drawing your attention away from). The artist said after the painting had brought about a lot of controversy: "The famous pipe. How people reproached me for it! And yet, could you stuff my pipe? No, it's just a representation, is it not? So if I had written on my picture "This is a pipe", I'd have been lying!"

The most famous example of this sort is John Cage's silent piece of music, 4'33". Here the point is that since the work has no musical content at all, we are forced to look (or listen) elsewhere. The musical work we are looking forward to is actually just silence so we begin to notice the other sounds in the room around us. So in the end there is never actually ‘silence’ but we only notice that in relation to the original piece, which is in itself actually silence.

On the one hand, as a musical piece, 4'33" leaves almost no room for the pianist's interpretation: as long as he watches the stopwatch, he can't play it too fast or too slow; he can't hit the wrong keys; he can't play it too loud, or too melodramatically, or too subduedly. On the other hand, what you hear when you listen to 4'33" is more a matter of chance than with any other piece of music - nothing of what you hear is anything the composer wrote. John Cage later said "I have nothing to say / and I am saying it / and that is poetry / as I needed it"

So you see the paradox of conceptual poetry is not an uncommon thing leading to people to say that conceptual poetry obeys Sturgeon’s Law (“90% of everything is crap”) referencing the fake part the you initially see (i.e. the bed, the pipe and so on). So next time you see a conceptual work of art, stop and ask yourself “what exactly am I supposed to be looking at (or listening to)?”

References:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceptual_art

• http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2011/10/the-paradox-of-some-conceptual-art.html#sthash.AGHiaPhT.dpuf

• http://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/artpages/tracey_emin_my_bed.htm

• http://mindbluff.com/paradoxes.htm

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_of_Images

• http://interglacial.com/~sburke/stuff/cage_433.html

Unboring Boring revisited

Throughout my exploration of conceptual art, music, and literature this semester, the concept of unboring boring introduced by Kenneth Goldsmith has transcended different mediums and resonated in everything we have studied.  Unboring boring can be seen in Goldsmith’s work when he uses process and procedure to take the mundane to a different level.  Another creator of conceptual work that touches on the principles of unboring boring is Andy Warhol.  In the ‘60s, Andy Warhol was part of the Pop art movement.  He took inspiration from existing items or images and transformed them into colorful, stylized, and unique works of art.  Both Goldsmith and Warhol use existing material from the world around them to create conceptual literature and art.  In his piece entitled “Day,” Goldsmith turns an unexceptional household item, the daily newspaper, into a 900 page book by simply transcribing every word.  The change of context of the newspaper alters the work without modifying the text.  In an analogous example, Andy Warhol elevates simple items such as soup cans past their ordinary aesthetic appeal as he transforms everyday images into art.  In their original form, newspapers and cans of soup are boring boring, but when the context changes to that of a gallery or a book, the soup cans and newspapers become unboring boring.

While both Goldsmith and Warhol are viewed as leaders and prominent figures in their respective conceptual movements, not all their work was eagerly accepted at first.  One of Warhol’s most famous paintings is an image of Marilyn Monroe that he altered with bright colors in his distinctive pop art, comic book-like technique.  The vast majority of viewers of the painting would not hesitate to accept the image as a unique, creative work of art by Warhol.  However when Warhol first made his Campbell’s soup can paintings, other artists and critics mocked him.  So why are people willing to accept some of his paintings whole-heartedly and dismiss others as plagiarism?  A stylized portrait of Marilyn Monroe is not that different from a stylized illustration of a Coca Cola bottle or a soup can.  The essence of Warhol’s work is elevating the ordinary world surrounding us to an imaginative, colorful, and playful world that exists in Warhol’s head.  In “Popism: The Warhol ‘60s,” Andy Warhol said, "Once you 'got' Pop, you could never see a sign the same way again. And once you ‘thought’ Pop, you could never see America the same way again."  This quote shows the similarities between Warhol’s view of pop art and Goldsmith’s context over content paradigm.  In Warhol’s pop art ‘thought,’ everything is art.  Goldsmith views all existing pieces of text in the same way.  However the process of recontextualization that Warhol and Goldsmith share, raises concern amongst some people who encounter their work.  Can works like “Day” and Warhol’s soup paintings be considered unique works of art, or does the uncreative method used make these pieces nothing more than celebrated plagiarism?

This question is one that Goldsmith has faced with every piece of text he has ever worked with.  At a book reading, Goldsmith was approached by another author who said, “You didn’t write a word of what you read.”  In his piece “Being Boring,” Goldsmith acknowledges that in a traditional sense of what it means to be a writer, he did not write the piece himself.  But he goes on to explain that in the “expanded field of appropriation, uncreativity, sampling, and language management in which we all habit today,” the accusing author was wrong.  As writing and art and other forms of expression change with society, people need to accept the new and sometimes crazy results of the shift.  Despite initial opposition to their works, both Andy Warhol and Kenneth Goldsmith are respected as artists and leaders of their movements.  Warhol took the ‘60s by storm with his bright pop art and Goldsmith has extended the world of conceptual and found poetry.  Both artists use the ordinary and sometimes mundane world around them to create interesting and ‘unboring’ works of art and literature.

A Humument

The book "A Humument" by Tom Phillips is an illustrated version of the novel "A Human Document" by W. H. Mallock.  However the illustrations in the book do more than just add pictures to a story.  Phillips’ drawings in “A Humument” completely change “A Human Document” all together.  To transform the book, Phillips drew and painted over the words on the pages to create a completely new story.  While most of the original text is covered by the illustration, Phillips leaves some words un-obscured to create a new story.  Since Phillips was limited to only specific words on each page, he used illustrations to augment the words he chose to reveal on the page.  The constraint on the words available to him allowed Phillips the opportunity to further enhance his chosen words to create not only a poem but also a work of art.

There are many art elements and design principles that make up all works of art.  Phillips uses many of these principles in his illustrations to help describe the poem on the page.  One important design principle is the center of emphasis.  The center of emphasis of an image is an area or object within the artwork that draws attention and becomes a focal point.  The center of emphasis can be a highly detailed area within a simple composition or an area of simplicity within a complex work of art.  Other examples of centers of emphasis include an area or object of bright color or a large image that dominates the work of art.  In a large number of cases, the center of emphasis abides by the rule of two thirds.  This dictates that one of the most effective places to put a center of emphasis is a corner position roughly two thirds of the way to the top or bottom of the page and two thirds of the way to the left or right.  Phillips uses all of these aspects that define a center of emphasis to help convey his message.

Another design principle used heavily by Phillips in “A Humument” is movement.  Movement in a piece of artwork is the path the viewer’s eye takes through the artwork that can be directed along lines, edges, shapes and colors.  Movement is created through contrasting areas of color or arrangements of shapes and figures in a work of art.  The ways the art elements are manipulated and combined form a path for the viewer.  Some examples of movement in works of art include lines moving around a work, paths of shapes that flow through a composition, and colorful brushstrokes swirling across a light background.  All of these examples show how the design principle movement directs a viewer’s eye from some start point through some path in a work of art.  In addition to emphasis and movement, value is another very important design principle used by Phillips in “A Humument.”  In a work of art, value is defined as the relative lightness or darkness of a color.

All of Phillips’ illustrations in “A Humument” contain some of these design principles to help convey the message of the poem on each page.  Phillips drew important illustrations that reflected the meaning of the words on the page and placed them in key spots on the page to create a center of emphasis and give further meaning to the page.  The center of emphasis is the first aspect of the image that the viewer’s eye jumps to, so using the emphasis point to show the most important part of the meaning of the text convays to the reader some of the important aspects of the text.  Movement is another design principle Phillips used to create a story on each page.  On the majority of the pages of “A Humument” the words that are not covered by illustrations are connected in a thread of words.  The contrast between the bubble of color around the words and the drawings in the background create a streamlined way to read the words highlighted by Phillips.  The movement created by the lines pulls the reader’s eye down the connected words in the order they were intended to be read.  Another important design principle used by Phillips to bring attention to certain words is value.  This design principle is useful to highlight important sections of the page.  Phillips uses value to hide certain words under dark colors and highlight some words by using light colors.  Together these design principles used by Phillips create a poem that is also a work of art on every page.

A Picture is Worth 1000 Words

Between class and the conversations on the blog, we have discussed conceptual literature, conceptual poetry, conceptual art, and conceptual film, but I wanted to know if the conceptual art movement affected photography as well. So, like any good detective, I typed into Google, conceptual photography, and sure enough a very nice Wikipedia page came up giving me a good place to start. The main purpose of conceptual photography, like all of the other branches from the Conceptual Art Movement, is to convey an idea. Kenneth Goldsmith states time and time again that the concept the piece is conveying is far more important than the content that it contains (3). The common belief amongst the conceptual art world is that it actually favors the message over the actual visual aspects of the piece (1). However, the visual aspects in the conceptual photography that I found seemed to matter just as much, if not more.

Photographs are one of the most powerful tools that we have. They can capture moments and things and allow them to be kept forever. They help trigger memories of times and events and they do so without even trying. When our brains see an image, it immediately tries to place it in the timeline of our lives (2). If it is from our past, then we are reminded of what was happening before, during, and after the image was taken. If it is new to us, then we try to figure out why we are seeing it. Through this natural association that the brain tries to make, conceptual photographers can convey methods using anything from a very simple image,

to a much more complex image that makes you think about all of the components as individuals first, and then as a whole.

A crucial part of conceptual photography is the captions. In both of the images above, I did not include their captions yet. By first taking in the image alone, you are forced to think about what the photographer was trying to say without being told up front. The two captions were "Air Guitar" and "Anorexia," can you guess which is which? The use of the captions is a way for the photographer to make sure that by the end of your time looking at the photograph, you leave thinking about what they want you to.

As you can see, these photographs are all about the visual aspects. They catch your eye and make your brain work to make it make sense, to give it reason for being shown. In one photograph, powerful images are streamed into your mind. It is the visual pieces that make us remember them. I scrolled through a stream of photos quickly and the one that stuck out in my brain the most was

It is captioned Trauma. Automatically it caught my eye and made me want to see what was wrong and when I came back to it, I studied it and tried to figure out why out of 70 pictures, it was this one that stuck out. What I figured out was that it had the most things that I recognized quickly. I could instantaneously connect that the navy blue and badged arm was a man in uniform and from the glimpse it was clear that the black with yellow stripes and helmet was a firefighter and then in all of the darkness there was something light that was drawing their attention. If all of that can be gathered in about a half of a second, no wonder conceptual photography can convey a message.

There are also much simpler images in which you can clearly see that the main focus of the photographer was not one the art of the image but on the message.

This is captioned "Smoking Kills." The simpleness of the visual aspects allows the viewer to stare not at the pieces or the details but only at the whole which screams the message loud and clear. It is very easy to see how the message was not only the main goal and focus but also that the photographer was going for a much less typically artistic photograph.

There is also that middle ground that a majority of the images fall into. They could very easily wind up on any wall of someone who just appreciates a nice photograph. This does not discredit the photograph, if anything it gives it more freedom. By keeping it in the middle, it is both visually stimulating but still relatively easy to interpret.

This photograph's caption is "Almost..." This is a beautiful photograph to begin with, and then it does not take long to realize that the fish is staring out at the ocean and you feel that it is so close to being there.

Overall, conceptual photography does do a just job of conveying a message, however it does not neglect the visual aspects. It instead uses them to guide the audience into finding the meaning and helping it stick. It has grown along with the Conceptual Art Movement itself and has expanded as well. Conceptual photography defies the basic idea that conceptual work does not rely on content yet it still conveys just as strong of a message. This can change the way that all conceptual content is considered not only in the art aspect of the Conceptual Art Movement but also in the way that conceptual literature is interpreted.

Sources
(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceptual_photography
(2) http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-brain-can-process-images-seen-for-just-13-milliseconds
(3) http://www.veramaurinapress.org/pdfs/Kenneth-Goldsmith_uncreative-writing.pdf
http://www.theartstory.org/movement-conceptual-art.htm
http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/conceptual-photography/
*all images throughout post came from: http://dpshots.com/photo-inspiration/conceptual-photography.html

Infographic

So like Natalie, I wanted to share my infographic on here. I was going to post it in a comment on Natalie's but it wouldn't let me put the image in.

So for this infographic there was a lot to consider. Sophia Le Fraga uses many internet sources to contruct her book I RL YOU RL so there was a lot to figure out. Once I got some sort of an idea as to where she got her content from, which was basically just the social media sites that she goes on when she is killing time, I then continued to see if she had a process. Her big thing is that she believes that "people love to hear themselves talk," she said so herself in an interview with HTML Giant, so she just takes what is posted and pulls it all together. A big thing that she focuses on is enjambment. Now I get a little bit too excited by clever enjambment due to the creative writing class that I took my senior year, but I very much appreciate Le Fraga's use of it. She parses the lines at places where the next line could go in really any direction. She plays with the meaning and tone by doing this. Like I said briefly in the comment on Natalie's post, there are multiple ways to read this book: conceptual, alt lit, and flarf. The conceptual method focuses on the recontextualization and how by taking it off of the internet and putting it onto concrete pages she is taking the ever changing internet and making it more permanent as well as just taking all that is said around it away. Alt lit focuses much more on the fact that her sources are social media sites and how that can change the way that it is interpreted. I think that the flarf method is a little bit far fetched, however there are certain times that you do wonder what the point of what she is writing is. All in all, I found this book to be more of an autobiography more than anything else. The internet these days, and especially social media sites, have become records of our  lives. By taking her internet world, Le Fraga is putting down on paper who she is at that point in time and tells us a lot about herself in doing so.

What is Conceptual Poetry? Revised

Here is a revised version of my first long essay:

During the progression of this course, I frequently find myself asking the question, “what is conceptual poetry?” and the even more burning question, “what’s the point?” Reading different texts and poetry every day, it seems that conceptual writing is pointless, even boring. Beginning the course with several works by Goldsmith, there was some shock at the types of writing he produced. As an individual who has never been exposed to conceptual writing, it is difficult to accept it as a legitimate form of writing. There is a parallel discussion to the validity of conceptual writing, which explores the meaning of art and what makes something fall into the category of art. This discussion includes works such as Andy Warhol’s “Campbell’s Soup Cans” and Duchamp’s “Fountain”, which are seemingly everyday objects that are placed into the category of art. Objects such as a can of tomato soup and a urinal can be arguably lacking in artistic because they are not creative. On the other end, some may consider these object art because they are placed in a different context-a painting or an art museum. Similarly, conceptual works such as Goldsmith’s “Soliloquy” and “Day” can be discussed in the same way, questioning whether or not conceptual writing can be considered creative writing. As the questions of what conceptual poetry is and its significance become more prevalent while reading conceptual works, the answers to these questions can be found through exploration of texts by authors such as Way and Philip to define conceptual poetry as a type of writing that uses appropriation to change the meaning of text into something else that is sometimes difficult to determine. Through exploring works such as M. NourbeSe Philip’s Zong!, the significance of conceptual writing can be defined as recontextualizing in order to give the same text a different meaning in a different context to get a specific point across. Conceptual writing is difficult to understand because it is not as simple to find significance in text that is sometimes seemingly mundane and boring.

An interesting poet named Nyein Way writes conceptual poetry as well as explores and defines the idea of conceptual poetry. His poem entitled “What is Conceptual Poetry?” is an intriguing piece that defines conceptual writing while also functioning as a piece of conceptual writing in itself.  An excerpt from the poem presents an accurate definition of conceptual poetry:

C) Dimensions of conceptual poetry: 
1]structural[pretext, context, text and post-text human condition]
2]functional [meaning, understanding, communication of message or information]
3]spiritual[ideas, fancy, imagination, emotion machine](Poemhunter.com)

The format of the writing, the inclusion of letters and numbers, makes it seem like Way has simply copied the definition of the word ‘conceptual’ from a dictionary or a textbook. This process fits the method of other famous authors such as Goldsmith, whose famous poem “Day” involves him copying every single word verbatim from a newspaper. The structural element means that conceptual poetry has a structure and process that went into creating it. The functional aspect means that there is a new context and message that the author is trying to convey with this new context and interpretations it might lend itself to. It is also interesting to note that Way defines conceptual poetry as having a “functional meaning” and being “spiritual”. This adds to the fact that conceptual writing has some meaning and purpose. This meaning can be anything, no matter how boring the piece may seem. Although it may be difficult to see the purpose of conceptual poetry, it takes some searching to find the significance of it. This fact allows one to further appreciate conceptual poetry as art. The artistic aspect of it is to force the reader to dig deeper and analyze the reason for its existence. “What is Conceptual Poetry?” does a good job at answering the question of what conceptual poetry is by literally defining it and allowing the interpretation that it has a spiritual aspect.

            A piece of writing that we are currently reading in class that has a special meaning is Zong! by M. NourbeSe Philip. Zong! is a book of poetry that encompasses the event of the Zong massacre. The poems use letters and words from the documented court case. This conceptual writing has struck me as meaningful because it is easier to find its significance, unlike a majority of Goldsmith’s conceptual poetry. The purpose is to “lock myself [Philip] into this particular and peculiar discursive landscape in the belief that the story of these African men, women, and children thrown overboard in an attempt to collect insurance monies, the story that can only be told by not telling, is locked in this text.” (Philip 191). Conversely, what is the purpose of Goldsmith’s “Soliloquy”? It takes more interpretation and work to determine what the significance is. An article on the Jacket 2 discusses Zong! and gives a new perspective on its place in the conceptual realm. The article explains that Philip acknowledges the fact that Zong! is conceptual due to the “erasure of the author, apparent appropriation of found text working within a rigidly defined set of rules, its composition is inextricably linked to the computer.” (Jacket 2). This process, also known as constraint, is seen throughout Zong! with a large amount of repetition and structure. There is, however, another element to the book that makes it more appealing than the traditional conceptual writing, and that is “something that underlies and emerges within the text that she [Philip] calls “spiritual,” for lack of a more satisfying term.” (Jacket 2). This “spiritual” element is what makes Zong! more interesting and less mundane. Zong! is clearly conceptual writing because it takes text and places it in a new context in order to give it a different meaning. It is interesting that the text from the court case is changed so much to tell a different story with a radically different purpose than the original text. Fitting the definition of conceptual writing, the “spiritual” element of Zong! makes it easier to determine a purpose for writing, which shows the significance of conceptual poetry.

            It is very striking to note that the “spiritual” element of Zong! is also mentioned in Way’s definition of conceptual in “What is Conceptual Poetry?” Other words similar to spiritual used by Way are “ideas, fancy, imagination, emotion machine” (Poemhunter.com). It is intriguing that the Jacket 2 article conveys that the evident spiritual element of Zong! makes it a little different from conceptual writing, juxtaposed to Way’s “What is Conceptual Poetry?” that includes the word spiritual in his definition of conceptual poetry. This contradiction emphasizes the fact that conceptual poetry has varying definitions and meanings to each individual. Jacket 2 explains that

the contours of conceptual poetry are still very much in flux. The visibility of a work like Zong! within the field of vision of this debate may push critics and scholars to work beyond notions of “pure” and “impure” commitments to certain rigidly process-based notions of conceptualism, to develop a working definition that can accommodate broader, more (w)holistic approaches (Jacket 2).

With that being said, maybe Zong! is a little more enjoyable than other conceptual works I have been exposed to because my definition of conceptual writing is different than someone else’s. Writing is an art form that has to do something emotionally or provoke my thoughts and stir my spirit. Art is a very profound form of expression where everyone can look at it a little differently. Jacket 2 is correct in saying that conceptual writing should have a “working definition” and it should be very open to different interpretations, as should any type of writing or self-expression. This fact puts conceptual writing in perspective, allowing us to see the significance of it. Conceptual writing is a different form of writing that is worthwhile to read and interpret, even if it may not seem so. The purpose of Goldsmith’s “Day” is not to read the entire thing, but to read small sections and be able to appreciate it as a recontextualization of language. Goldsmith’s “Day” is significant, as all other conceptual writing, because it changes the way we think of the same text, it is telling a different story about a newspaper than the newspaper would itself. It is so interesting because this text already exists, it is simply being recycled and reused to create something else that is worth reading.

            My mind has been expanded, my comfort zone has been tested, and my opinion on art and writing has been changed forever. Ever since being initially exposed to conceptual writing, there is a new appreciation level for writing in general. After the initial shock and skepticism, I have learned to accept and embrace novel ideas and forms of expression in terms of conceptual writing. As for the questions that I struggle with when exploring conceptual writing and its significance, these works by Way and Philip presented above help in answering those questions. Way helps define conceptual poetry as a recontextualization of language, which changes the meaning of it into something spiritual and functional. An example of this is Zong!, which shows how changing the context of a certain text can tell a radically different story and have a totally different meaning and purpose.

Here is a link to Way's poem "What is Conceptual Poetry?" http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/what-is-conceptual-poetry/%E2%80%8B

Works Cited

"Nyein Way - Chief Cultural Advisor & Literary Faculty." Theatre for Humanity. N.p., n.d.          Web. 25 Feb. 2015. <http://theatreforhumanity.info/new-yangon-theatre   institut/biographies--new-yangon/nyein-way---chief-cultural.html>.

Philip, Marlene Nourbese. Zong! Middletown, CT: Wesleyan UP, 2008. Print.

Poem, Nyein Way. "What Is Conceptual Poetry?" Poemhunter.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Feb.         2015. <http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/what-is-conceptual-poetry/%E2%80%8B>.

Shockley, Evie. "Is 'Zong!' Conceptual Poetry? Yes, It Isn't." Jacket 2. N.p., 17 Sept. 2013. Web. 25 Feb. 2015. <http://jacket2.org/article/zong-conceptual-poetry-yes-it       isn%E2%80%99t>.