The Conceptual Poet as Witness

Abstract

© 2021 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System t has been five years since David Kaufman asked in Postmodern Culture whether conceptual poetry was “still interesting.” His conclusion―yes, it was―offered critical reprieve for a genre that was assessed, barely a year later, as already “eight minutes [into its] fifteen minutes of fame” (Price). Since then, some critics have indeed lost patience with the genre, one that uses procedural and constraint-based methods to rewrite, re-mediate, and often proudly copy existing texts. In spring 2015, leading conceptual poet Kenneth Goldsmith offended many of the genre’s remaining followers by turning the autopsy report for slain African American teenager Michael Brown into a poetic performance.1 In one of the more memorable dismissals of the practice as a whole (the internet teems with plenty to choose from), poet Charles Simic compared conceptual poetry to “a violin played by a hairdryer” (qtd. in Wilkinson). Although some critics have deemed the practice “already dead” (Hong), poets continue to experiment with conceptual methods. Other critics have remained interested, as recent books and essays by Brian Reed, Scott Pound, Seth Perlow, David