A review of his book, Crystallography
The "e"-free chapter from Eunoia. How Oulipo!
Christian Bök at the EPC.
Am I the only person who doesn't know how to pronounce anything with an umlaut in it? They're like a pair of fangpoints, hanging over a word, daring me to say anything. Feh.
Tan Lin has a new book. He was a professor at U.Va. when I was an undergrad there...took his class on 20th Century Asian-American literature, and it was one of the only classes I had where I actually had to think.
Have some more Tan Lin and some more. Beware, that last link is also home to a particularly fatuous blurb by Charles Bernstein.
Blurbs are one of the most horrifying uses of language. Why does Bernstein write this blurb? Isn't it the capitalistic commodification of language? He uses language to sell language. I've written ad copy, and at least ad copy has the virtue of being direct. It pressures directly. Buy, buy, buy! The ad copywriter is a sellout, but at least he admits his sale.
So, that clinches it. I will break onto the poetry scene by writing poems that are blurbs for non-existent books. Brilliant. Nobody steal my idea, you hear? I'm going to go describe something as "giving rise to a transcendence that defeats itself" and as "breaking new ground with its meta-commentaries on the structures of dominance that pervade a culture based on exchange rather than collaboration." That is so damn right -- I am going to go write a poem that is the blurb for the non-existent book of poems that are blurbs for non-existent books. Eat. Your. Freakin. Heart. Out.
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