Unoriginal Genius


Book Description

Marjorie Perloff here explores this intriguing development in contemporary poetry: the embrace of "unoriginal" writing. Paradoxically, she argues, such citational and often constraint-based poetry is more accessible and, in a sense, "personal" than was the hermetic poetry of the 1980's and 90's. --




The Future of Text


Book Description

This book is the first anthology of perspectives on the future of text, one of our most important mediums for thinking and communicating, with a Foreword by the co-inventor of the Internet, Vint. Cerf and a Postscript by the founder of the modern Library of Alexandria, Ismail Serageldin. In a time with astounding developments in computer special effects in movies and the emergence of powerful AI, text has developed little beyond spellcheck and blue links. In this work we look at myriads of perspectives to inspire a rich future of text through contributions from academia, the arts, business and technology. We hope you will be as inspired as we are as to the potential power of text truly unleashed. Contributions by Adam Cheyer * Adam Kampff * Alan Kay * Alessio Antonini * Alex Holcombe * Amaranth Borsuk * Amira Hanafi * Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. * Anastasia Salter * Andy Matuschak & Michael Nielsen * Ann Bessemans & María Pérez Mena * Andries Van Dam * Anne-Laure Le Cunff * Anthon Botha * Azlen Ezla * Barbara Beeton * Belinda Barnet * Ben Shneiderman * Bernard Vatant * Bob Frankston * Bob Horn * Bob Stein * Catherine C. Marshall * Charles Bernstein * Chris Gebhardt * Chris Messina * Christian Bök * Christopher Gutteridge * Claus Atzenbeck * Daniel Russel * Danila Medvedev * Danny Snelson * Daveed Benjamin * Dave King * Dave Winer * David De Roure * David Jablonowski * David Johnson * David Lebow * David M. Durant * David Millard * David Owen Norris * David Price * David Weinberger * Dene Grigar * Denise Schmandt-Besserat * Derek Beaulieu * Doc Searls * Don Norman * Douglas Crockford * Duke Crawford * Ed Leahy * Elaine Treharne * Élika Ortega * Esther Dyson * Esther Wojcicki * Ewan Clayton * Fiona Ross * Fred Benenson & Tyler Shoemaker * Galfromdownunder, aka Lynette Chiang * Garrett Stewart * Gyuri Lajos * Harold Thimbleby * Howard Oakley * Howard Rheingold * Ian Cooke * Iian Neil * Jack Park * Jakob Voß * James Baker * James O'Sullivan * Jamie Blustein * Jane Yellowlees Douglas * Jay David Bolter * Jeremy Helm * Jesse Grosjean * Jessica Rubart * Joe Corneli * Joel Swanson * Johanna Drucker * Johannah Rodgers * John Armstrong * John Cayle * John-Paul Davidson * Joris J. van Zundert * Judy Malloy * Kari Kraus & Matthew Kirschenbaum * Katie Baynes * Keith Houston * Keith Martin * Kenny Hemphill * Ken Perlin * Leigh Nash * Leslie Carr * Lesia Tkacz * Leslie Lamport * Livia Polanyi * Lori Emerson * Luc Beaudoin & Daniel Jomphe * Lynette Chiang * Manuela González * Marc-Antoine Parent * Marc Canter * Mark Anderson * Mark Baker * Mark Bernstein * Martin Kemp * Martin Tiefenthaler * Maryanne Wolf * Matt Mullenweg * Michael Joyce * Mike Zender * Naomi S. Baron * Nasser Hussain * Neil Jefferies * Niels Ole Finnemann * Nick Montfort * Panda Mery * Patrick Lichty * Paul Smart * Peter Cho * Peter Flynn * Peter Jenson & Melissa Morocco * Peter J. Wasilko * Phil Gooch * Pip Willcox * Rafael Nepô * Raine Revere * Richard A. Carter * Richard Price * Richard Saul Wurman * Rollo Carpenter * Sage Jenson & Kit Kuksenok * Shane Gibson * Simon J. Buckingham Shum * Sam Brooker * Sarah Walton * Scott Rettberg * Sofie Beier * Sonja Knecht * Stephan Kreutzer * Stephanie Strickland * Stephen Lekson * Stevan Harnad * Steve Newcomb * Stuart Moulthrop * Ted Nelson * Teodora Petkova * Tiago Forte * Timothy Donaldson * Tim Ingold * Timur Schukin & Irina Antonova * Todd A. Carpenter * Tom Butler-Bowdon * Tom Standage * Tor Nørretranders * Valentina Moressa * Ward Cunningham * Dame Wendy Hall * Zuzana Husárová. Student Competition Winner Niko A. Grupen, and competition runner ups Catherine Brislane, Corrie Kim, Mesut Yilmaz, Elizabeth Train-Brown, Thomas John Moore, Zakaria Aden, Yahye Aden, Ibrahim Yahie, Arushi Jain, Shuby Deshpande, Aishwarya Mudaliar, Finbarr Condon-English, Charlotte Gray, Aditeya Das, Wesley Finck, Jordan Morrison, Duncan Reid, Emma Brodey, Gage Nott, Aditeya Das and Kamil Przespolewski. Edited by Frode Hegland.




Uncreative Writing


Book Description

Can techniques traditionally thought to be outside the scope of literature, including word processing, databasing, identity ciphering, and intensive programming, inspire the reinvention of writing? The Internet and the digital environment present writers with new challenges and opportunities to reconceive creativity, authorship, and their relationship to language. Confronted with an unprecedented amount of texts and language, writers have the opportunity to move beyond the creation of new texts and manage, parse, appropriate, and reconstruct those that already exist. In addition to explaining his concept of uncreative writing, which is also the name of his popular course at the University of Pennsylvania, Goldsmith reads the work of writers who have taken up this challenge. Examining a wide range of texts and techniques, including the use of Google searches to create poetry, the appropriation of courtroom testimony, and the possibility of robo-poetics, Goldsmith joins this recent work to practices that date back to the early twentieth century. Writers and artists such as Walter Benjamin, Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, and Andy Warhol embodied an ethos in which the construction or conception of a text was just as important as the resultant text itself. By extending this tradition into the digital realm, uncreative writing offers new ways of thinking about identity and the making of meaning.




Genius Loci


Book Description

From a poet and essayist whose writing about nature has won her comparisons with Gary Snyder and Terry Tempest Williams comes a new collection that offers further evidence of her ability to trace the intersections of the human and nonhuman worlds. The title poem is a lyrical excavation of the city of Prague, where layers of history, culture and nature have accumulated to form “a genius loci”—a guardian spirit.




Partial Genius


Book Description

Poetry. "I love this book so much. A work of meticulous craft and profound originality, Mary Biddinger's newest collection of prose poems is one of the best books I've read on our historical moment and the decades that led to it. PARTIAL GENIUS reads like a dossier of the psychological landscape of late capitalist America and the end of empire. In the tradition of John Ashbery, but wholly original in her own vision and voice, Biddinger draws from a deep well of poetic intellect and wit to illuminate the existential threats and imaginative possibilities of our collective self-destruction. In 'The Subject Pool' the speaker watches a man tattoo AU COURANT around her thigh. The tattoo artist has no idea. Every poem is chock-full of revelations in every detail. Reading this book felt like sitting by the fire in some secret location with a double agent, smoking her pipe telling tales of all that went down right in front of our faces, while we were all driven to distraction by outrage. To paraphrase Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth, She's got it all in this book."--Heather Derr-Smith "'How many days since you began your last panic...?' Mary Biddinger asks in her latest collection. Quirky, imaginative, and wry in tone, PARTIAL GENIUS is a book that thwarts expectation, turns convention on its head, surprises and delights. Within a narrative scaffolded like a twisting stairway or maze-like hall, these fascinating poems feature high school reunions, job interviews, broken dioramas, and birth control pills; they showcase apologies, parlor games, and consolation prizes, intricacies, illusions, and tricks. Comfort is found in a bar of bathroom soap. An assistant manager wonders why a blazer is named for fire. A radio is implanted in the chest as a companion to the heart. Spheres of uncertainty juxtaposed against landscapes of failure create the book's complex beauty and dangerous edge, as Biddinger claims, 'The best part of figure skating was getting cut.' PARTIAL GENIUS comes to us as both a study of despair and a gleaming beacon of hope."--Jennifer Militello




Egghead


Book Description

A strange and charming collection of hilariously absurd poetry, writing, and illustration from one of today's most popular young comedians?Ķ Bo Burnham was a precocious teenager living in his parents' attic when he started posting material on YouTube. 100 million people viewed those videos, turning Bo into an online sensation with a huge and dedicated following. Bo taped his first of two Comedy Central specials four days after his 18th birthday, making him the youngest to do so in the channel's history. Now Bo is a rising star in the comedy world, revered for his utterly original and intelligent voice. And, he can SIIIIIIIIING! In Egghead, Bo brings his brand of brainy, emotional comedy to the page in the form of off-kilter poems, thoughts, and more. Teaming up with his longtime friend, artist, and illustrator Chance Bone, Bo takes on everything from death to farts in this weird book that will make you think, laugh and think, "why did I just laugh?"




The Genius of Oblivion


Book Description




My Dog May Be a Genius


Book Description

Have you ever encountered an underwater marching band, a pig in a bathing suit, a pet orangutan, or a witch in a hardware store? Have you ever sat with a skunk in a courtroom, shopped for a dinosaur, or conversed with a Bupple, a Wosstrus, a Violinnet, or a Celloon? You will have, once you′ve read this exuberant collaboration from Jack Prelutsky and his "partner in crime"∗ James Stevenson. The "reigning czars of silliness"∗ have once again teamed up to bring readers an irresistible collection of poems that will have tongues twisting, imaginations soaring, and sides aching with laughter. The result is genius, indeed. ∗Publishers Weekly (starred review)




Twenty-one Love Poems


Book Description




Abu Nuwas


Book Description

This is the first book to present the life, times and poetry of one of the greatest poets in the Arab tradition, Abu Nuwas. Author Philip Kennedy provides the narrative of Abu Nuwas's fascinating life, which was full of intrigue and debauched adventure, in parallel with the presentation of his greatest poems, across all genres, in easy and accessible translations, giving commentary where needed.