What is Conceptual Poetry? Long Post

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. After reading “Uncreative Writing” by Goldsmith, there was an understanding of what he does while copying text from newspapers and radio broadcasts. It was easier to understand where Goldsmith was coming from, and the brutality of his honestly brought about an entire new level of understanding about what he and so many other conceptual writers have done. There was a closer feeling towards Goldsmith’s writing because it was easy to agree that he was boring, extremely boring. While moving through the class, I have learned to accept this form of expression, while still struggling with what meaning and purpose it has and what defines it as art.
            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]
             4]wisdom [integrated insight, intuitive awareness, second-phase of consciousness-raising          process]
             5]cartesian theatre
             6]concreteness of being
             7]emerged becomingingness (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. 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 a meaning for it all. 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.
            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 has a clear purpose for existing, unlike some of Goldsmith’s writing. 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 writing down every single word you spoke in one day as in Goldsmith’s “Soliloquy”? 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 than some other conceptual poetry such as Goldsmith’s “Soliloquy”.
            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 very 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.
            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 Kenneth Goldsmith, I feel that I do not fully understand his purpose for writing but maybe one day I can learn to appreciate it as much as I do Zong!.

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>.​

Unboring Boring

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.  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.

  

Andy Warhol in front of his Campbell’s soup collection (https://historyherstoryblog.wordpress.com/2013/07/09/warhols-campbells-soup-cans-debuts-in-la-1962/)

Marilyn Monroe by Warhol 1961 (http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/warhol-marilyn-diptych-t03093)

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.  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.

Tic-Tac-Toe (Long Post)

When you look at this what do you see? I know most people see that boring third grade social studies class playing tic-tac-toe, noughts and crosses, Xs and Os or whatever they chose to call it back then with their best friend. Now, all I see is ’26,830 possible combinations[i].’

Traditional tic-tac-toe involves getting your marker (either an X or an O) in a vertical, diagonal or horizontal row to win the game. It is in that same sense that tic-tac-toe poetry[ii] should be written. Possible lines of a poem are arranged in a 3x3 grid and you would select three lines that would make for a winning tic-tac-toe game. So in the course of writing an entire poem, by selecting several combinations for up to 100 grids, there are almost 26,830 possible combinations, making it almost impossible to ever ‘write’ the same poem twice. This type of recontextualization is very similar to Raymond Queneau’s book A Hundred Thousand Billion Poems[iii]. His book is a set of ten sonnets which are printed on card with each line on a separated strip, like a heads-bodies-and-legs book, a type of children's book with which Queneau was familiar. All ten sonnets have not just the same rhyme scheme but the same rhyme sounds, any lines from a sonnet can be combined with any from the nine others, so that there are 1014 (= 100,000,000,000,000) different poems. It would take some 200,000,000 years to read them all, even reading twenty-four hours a day[iv].

But the question here is should these forms of recontextualization be considered poetry?

Firstly, let me elaborate on my thought process. I’ve arranged lines from a poem in a tic-tac-toe grid to form a 3-line stanza and with this one grid alone, 84 different stanzas can be formed.

Technically, because you’re selecting possible lines of a poem just randomly put in a grid, whatever the result is should as well be poetry. But that’s not the point. Poetry is considered a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities. It contains multiple interpretations and therefore resonates differently in each reader[v]. I consider this poetry because it could mean anything. To be precise, 100 grids of possible lines of poems, could end up having 26,830 different meanings depending on how it resonates in each reader. This is also not far from traditional literature, where writers develop their own style of writing.[vi]

I imagine each line of the poem to pop out at the user (because the poem was put together randomly) with each of them carrying its own meaning, but as you progress, the poem in entirety would be given meaning, again depending on how it resonates in each reader. The general assumption is that success is related to organization[vii] so critics may refute that this is a poem on the basis that the poet is never really sure of the order of the lines, the poem is created purely by chance. But that’s the beauty of the poem and it’s precisely what categorizes tic-tac-toe poetry under recontextualized language. According to the book ‘A Perfect Mess’, “Many new discoveries, inventions and creative projects are the result of sheer happenstance or inadvertently veering off in an unexpected direction. If you don't inject a little disorder in your life you mostly likely will miss out on the serendipity of an unplanned success.” Basically, the authors are saying that a little disorder merits unplanned success, in this case, randomly disorganizing lines may give you a great poem and even if that isn’t the case the first time, you still have about 26,829 more tries.

Whenever I think of recontextualized language I ask myself “what would Kenneth Goldsmith do?” And in that case, I see tic-tac-toe poetry as something he would definitely try. I like to think of him saying “The best poets are those who can best repurpose general language, reframing it as poetry,”[viii] after I ask him what he thinks of tic-tac-toe poetry. Critic Marjorie Perloff has written that “Goldsmith works on the borders between ‘poetry’ and ‘prose’ and, more courageously, between poetry and ‘not poetry,' not to mention the borders between ‘literature’ and ‘art’.” Similarly, this is exactly what tic-tac-toe poetry does and it does so in a Goldsmithian manner. You see, conceptual poetry is not based on originality. It is taking what already exists, in this case the possible lines of the poem, and making them into something new in local contexts[ix] and that alone gives the new work meaning. We all know a good poem, isn’t just one that looks good and has a surface meaning but one that has an underlying secondary meaning.[x] This secondary meaning is the purpose of the poem. The actual message the poet wanted to carry across when he wrote the poem. Here it screams the same meaning Soliloquy, one of Kenneth Goldsmith’s works, does: “it leaves the reader with a convinced sense that language, no matter how un-artful (or disorganized), does the heavy lifting in our lives, and has encoded the entire registry our being."[xi] And this is just with the traditional tic-tac-toe.

In recent times, grids have been given the ability to be entered into computers so that after the lines of poem have been entered into the grid, poems can be randomly generated. 3D tic-tac-toe has been created so that even more possibilities are available. Whether tic-tac-toe poetry is the future of poetry is an entirely different argument, but for now, I believe Tic-tac-toe poetry would be a boost to traditional language by giving it infinite possibilities especially with computer generated poems. All this because someone wanted to go farther than just Xs and Os.


References:

[i] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tic-tac-toe

[ii] http://midnightice97.deviantart.com/art/Tic-Tac-Toe-Poems-211447405

[iii] http://www.bevrowe.info/Queneau/QueneauRandom_v4.html

[iv] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Thousand_Billion_Poems

[v] http://code-poems.com/index.html

[vi] http://www.wired.com/2012/02/code-poems/

[vii] http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/Careers/04/30/cb.mess/

[viii] http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/20894/1/kenneth-goldsmiths-manifesto-for-poetry-now

[ix] http://blogs.iac.gatech.edu/j8group1/2015/02/10/the-modernization-of-literature/

[x] http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/05/05/the-poetics-of-coding/

[xi] http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/kenneth-goldsmith

273 (Long Post)

by Niraj

Fryderyk Chopin: Scherzo in C-Sharp Minor. Sergei Rachmaninov: Prelude in B Minor. Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Sonata in A Major, Op. 2. And so on, and so forth. 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."

I do not by any means wish to brag, but to say I am a classical music fan would be a gross understatement. As an avid pianist of over ten years and a regular listener of recordings of the classical canon (from Bach to Mozart, Chopin to Scriabin), I have to say that finding the word "piano" in any context tends to draw me to that subject. In fact, as I write this, I am in a practice room at the Couch music building. Yet, the irony of my selecting J8 is the piece in question: not of Beethoven, not of Mozart, but by a certain John Cage.

I had known of John Cage before, having stumbled upon him during one of my many "YouTube runs" looking for new piano music. "John Cage - In a Landscape (1948)" (linked below) was a suggested video on the YouTube sidebar, and one I happened to select. The piece of music was impressionistic in its themes with a watery texture akin to Claude Debussy's famous Clair de Lune, and I loved it. This was the only time that I heard a John Cage piece with an unbiased opinion of his music, completely unaware of the utter noise (and, in the case of 4'33", silence) that he is most associated with today. The very next John Cage work that I heard was his Freeman Etude No. 18 for Solo Violin, published 1990. And what a difference that 42 years made.

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 to pure dissonance (an oxymoron in some sense.) Had I not heard what 36-year-old John Cage had composed, I would have written him off as a lunatic instantly. I guess I was lucky to have heard his beautiful 1948 piece first, or else I may not have met Dr. Rettberg or any of my fellow classmates. 

I spent a good deal of time listening to many famous works by Cage, including his solos for sliding trombone and amplified cactus (any reaction is suitable) and, of course, 4'33". The particular recording of 4'33" that I heard convinced me that this was no joke; if the BBC Symphony Orchestra could take this work seriously enough to perform and stream it live, perhaps I had not achieved any significant level of musical knowledge to understand Cage's works yet. Is there a hierarchy of genres based on complexity, and if so, how far does it go, and what can be classified as music in this day and age? To designate John Cage's piece for amplified cactus a work of music and exclude whale vocalization or Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech seems to be extremely hypocritical, as those are two things I'd much rather listen to.

And isn't that the point of music? To, at its most basic level, evoke some positive emotion or a sense of wonder and beauty? I suppose musical tastes vary, but I was yet to find a single person who enjoys what I would characterize as dissonant music (yet another oxymoron; or is it?) That's why I leapt at the opportunity to analyze John Cage's famous work of zero effort. 

So what did I learn from the analysis in class? As I expected, the conclusion was very open-ended. A few students enjoyed the silence being "performed", and it's calming effect. Many others felt that the composition was pointless in every regard. There was a discussion on what counts as music in the first place, which defeated any arguments that the piece couldn't be considered music. There was a discussion on John Cage's intent in splitting the silence into 3 movements, which led, in my opinion, nowhere towards understanding the work. I came out of the exercise more confused than ever. I can't help but wonder at John Cage. He's a man who wrote arguably the worst pieces I've ever heard. And he's a man whose initial impression on me was so strong that I simply cannot give up on him.

Maybe someday I will be able to comprehend the greater part of Cage's oeuvre. Until then, I guess I'll spend the 273 seconds of futile downbeats and audience murmur playing a Chopin nocturne in my head.




John Cage - In a Landscape (1948):
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&ei=JTTaVPbLGIODNvWqhMAN&url=http://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DI2wtmQkvX7A&ved=0CB8QyCkwAA&usg=AFQjCNH9slf0bHtY85FDuWbG9LIijSaPbA&sig2=U01OoxzcuprdqtPliLa9OA

Recontextualized Fridge

by Kelly

Hey, so for my recontextualized language I took each letter of the model number, HNDE03, and manually pulled out each word in every language that started with that letter (or number). I then typed these words into Microsoft Word and formatted them into the letter that they begin with. So, each word that began with the letter “h” was put in a list and then those words were formatted into an “H,” and the same occurred for the other respective letters. The way the words themselves are formatted: capitalization, bold, italics, punctuation, etc. is based off of how the word appeared in the instruction manual. So, if the word was bolded and in all capitals then that is how it appeared in the recontextualization. In doing this I tried to emphasize the presence of the model number HNDE03. I was interested in the model number because it was the only thing that was the same in all of the languages that the user manual was written in. I thought that was poetic in the sense that to me and some random person in France (French is one of the languages), even though the word refrigerator may be different for us, the model number would still connect us. 
Here are the pictures of what I did! (ps sorry for any bad resolution)