Kenneth Goldsmith: the new radicalism is paper

Conceptual poet Kenneth Goldsmith gives an interesting interview, including this insight (IN IN IN IN):

It used to be that if you wanted to be subversive and radical, you’d publish on the web, bypassing all those arcane publishing structures at no cost. Everyone would know about your work at lightning speed; you’d be established and garner credibility in a flash, with an adoring worldwide readership. Shh… the new radicalism is paper. Right? Publish it on a printed page and no one will ever know about it. It’s the perfect vehicle for terrorists, plagiarists, and for subversive thoughts in general. If you don’t want it to exist—and there are many reasons to want to keep things private—keep it off the web. But if you put it in digital form, expect it to be bootlegged, remixed, manipulated, and endlessly commented upon. Expect spiders to pick it up and use it as ad-bait on spoof web pages. The moment you put it out there, all bets are off; it’s way out of your control.

Linked by Harriet.

Hennecker’s Ditch, or Where Exactly Is It That We Are To Stop Looking

The Best British Poetry 2011 includes a poem called ‘Hennecker’s Ditch’ by Katharine Kilalea. It is quoted in full on Carcanet’s New Poetries blog — everyone should read it — , followed by a lengthy discussion by Don Share, which is in turn taken up by Rob Mackenzie. The discussion is fascinating, as Share follows his investigations into the meaning of this mysterious poem, mostly through Google. It’s probably one of the most interesting things to ripple across the poetry channels for a while. Here are my thoughts.

Continue reading →

The Best British Poetry 2011: A Brief Review

Roddy Lumsden, ed./ The Best British Poetry 2011

£7.99 / Salt / ISBN: 978-1-907773-04-4

The Best British Poetry 2011 collects poems published across different magazines over the last year, & shows a wide range of different poets & styles. It includes biographies, as expected, but also features short explanations by the poets of their poems, which is a fascinating way to become involved with the included writers & their work; one spends a lot of time in this book flicking forwards & backwards. Anthologies can sometimes submerge the individual authors & smooth over their differences, but the expanded end-matter included by Lumsden prevents this, & makes it much more likely for readers to explore the writers they find within. The anthology is also perhaps a testament to the Poetry Library in the Southbank Centre (which is a very nice place to visit, & which maintains copies of many poetry magazines online). Overall, The Best British Poetry 2011 is a great overview of what is happening in contemporary poetry, & is certainly the start of an important series.

Incidentally, Salt’s poetry seems to be working in overtime this autumn, with their forthcoming Salt Book of Younger Poets (also edited by Lumsden), their apparently accelerating publication of the Salt Modern Voices series of pamphlets (including Claire Trévien’s Low-Tide Lottery, which I reviewed last week, & Emily Hasler’s natural histories, which I am reading currently), & their 99c sale of backlist poetry titles on the Kindle.

Links:

Rob Mackenzie has a more thorough (& more interesting) review of the anthology on his blog. Also, Carrie Etter has written a little bit about it. (She is also in it.)