Conceptual Poetry and Its Others
University of Arizona Poetry Center
Tucson, AZ
5/29-31/08

Thursday, May 29

4 p.m. Reading with Charles Bernstein and Tracie Morris

5 p.m. Break

7 p.m. Keynote Address with Marjorie Perloff

Friday, May 30

9 a.m. The Politics of Conceptual Writing, Craig Dworkin
This seminar will investigate the politics of conceptual writing. Understanding politics broadly as “relations of power,� we will seek to better understand the way in which those relations are reconfigured by the various contexts in which conceptual writing practices might be read: plagiarism and copyright; new media and government surveillance; psychosis and medical diagnosis; publishing fads; the Situationists’ principle of detournement. Several case studies will be presented, followed by open participation.

10:15 a.m. Forms of Social Engagement, Caroline Bergvall
In this workshop, I will be looking at conceptual methods as they frame and favour socially engaged forms of writing. I will be using examples from my own work as well as from a few other writers/poets who work conceptually to set up a discussion around questions of personal history and poetic process; bilingualisms and writing engagement; language awareness and writing systems.

11:30 a.m. Uncreative Writing Workshop, Kenneth Goldsmith
It’s clear that long-cherished notions of creativity are under attack, eroded by file-sharing, media culture, widespread sampling, and digital replication. How does writing respond to this new environment? This workshop will rise to that challenge by employing strategies of appropriation, replication, plagiarism, piracy, sampling, plundering, as compositional methods. Along the way, we’ll look at the rich history of forgery, frauds, hoaxes, avatars, and impersonations spanning the arts, with a particular emphasis on how they employ language. Participants will be penalized for showing any trace of originality, sincerity or honesty.

12:30 p.m. Break

2:15 p.m. Panel Discussion with featured poets, moderated by Tenney Nathanson

4 p.m. What to Do Besides Describe it: Ekphrasis that Ignores the Subject, Cole

The tradition of ekphrasis is based in evoking a work of art, of bringing it into the heart of the poem, and, traditionally, this is done through description. And this is all well and good, but is it not a bit limiting? In this hour, we’ll look beyond subject-matter to the many formal echoes between the visual arts and poetry: rhythm, juxtaposition, repetition, parallelism, and many other principles can help the writer engage a work of art in collaborative ways. Introductory comments supported by examples will be followed by a writing exercise, so do bring writing materials.

5:15 p.m. Reading with Craig Dworkin and Kenneth Goldsmith

6:15 p.m. Break

8 p.m. Reading with Cole Swensen, Christian Bök, and Caroline Bergvall

Saturday, May 31

9 a.m. Black conceptual poetics: examples for crafting, Tracie Morris
In this workshop, we will look at ways in which identity is explored through the simultaneous use of conventional form and the freedom from it. How does freedom in and out of form present models of Black thinking and how does this illuminate an overarching American sense of self? We will analyze specific texts from African American artists and workshop ways that our understanding of these texts helps us in our own writing and editing.

10:15 a.m. Roundtable Discussion with Marjorie Perloff, Moderator; Jesper Olsson; Marie Smart; Linda Reinfeld; Vanessa Place; Charles Alexander; Brian Reed

11:45 a.m. Break

1:45 p.m. Two Dots over a Vowel, Christian Bök
Lest we dismiss the tactics of conceptual literature as nothing more than the mere symptoms of a creeping, literary necrosis, occasioned by the murder of the author at the hands of such postmodern theorizers as Barthes, for example, or, perhaps Foucault, let us consider that this novel genre might strive to accent the disjunction between “intentionality� (_what we mean to mean_) and “expressiveness� (_what we seem to mean_). If the lyric voice, for the sake of authentic sincerity, yearns to repair this breach between what we intend to say and what we appear to say, then conceptual literature, by contrast, accentuates this discrepancy.

3 p.m. Poetry Rules!: The Concept of Poetry , Charles Bernstein
“What is poetry?� said jesting Pilate and would not stay for an answer. This definitional question haunts and propels poetry. I will start with some aphoristic remarks on philosophical, aesthetic, and ethical approaches to the issue. Then I will present some case studies. By session end, we should be able to come up with some hard
and fast rules for why there can’t be hard and fast rules.

4:15 p.m. Roundtable Discussion with Marjorie Perloff, Moderator; Barbara Cole; Wystan Curnow; Jonathan Stalling; Graça Capinha; Stephen Fredman; Laynie Browne

5:45 p.m. Break

6:30 p.m. Reception