Vladan Kuzmanovć
Poetry by Other Means in the New Century

Interview with Majorie Perloff, February 2020.

1.You published Unoriginal Genius: Poetry by Other Means in the New Century your response. How would you define “unoriginal genius”?

1.MPG.  The phrase “unoriginal genius” is, of course, ironic.  What I meant was that one could be a “genius” even when all the language in one’s work was taken from elsewhere—was “unoriginal.”  Genius is not necessarily a matter of inventing a plot or characters or language but of making the right choices.

2. What gave you turn to avant-garde at the time of “The Futurist Moment: Avant-Garde, Avant Guerre, and the Language of Rupture, with a New Preface”?

MGP.  The first edition of THE FUTURIST MOMENT was 1986; the second came in 2003 and much had changed!   Most important, it was after 9—1—1 and the U.S. was transformed forever!  No more Utopian hopes and even the “cool” futurism I talk about in my last chapter is no more.  So I wanted to reflect a little bit on the issues involved. 

3. Concrete poetry is nowadays very popular in Brazil? What about elsewhere? I suppose it was not always that way?
4. MGP. Concrete Poetry came into being in smaller or minor cultures—Brazil, Sweden, Switzerland—rather than in the great capitals like Paris, London, or New York. For one thing, it was the perfect form for those who write in lesser-known languages.  I can’t read Portuguese--or only very slightly—but I can make out the great Brazilian concrete poems.  But Concretism never has caught on in the Anglophone countries; I’m not quite sure why.  Here it is considered just fun and games, not serious enough.  In the U.S. poets are expected to “say” important things. 
5. Is there any relation of laterism to concrete poetry?

MGP. I don’t know what laterism is.  Do you mean multi-laterism?  If so, then, yes, the idea of switching languages and an awareness of globalism would be very important to concrete poets.

5. You worked a lot on Language poets and Objectivists? In your view, what was the contribution of Language poets to Avant-garde and even more Contemporary poetry?

MGP: Language Poetry was very important to me in the 1990s-2000s, more than a principle than for the individual poets, few of whom were in fact outstanding poets.  It put to rest the notion that the poet begins with Ideas and then puts those ideas into language.  Rather, poetry begins with language.  There are no “thoughts” outside of language as Charles Bernstein put it.  Language poetry had a very important negative effect, sweeping the room clean of these stale ideas about “emotion” and “lyric sincerity” etc.

6.. Language was something like Dada, concrete, experimental, conceptual at the same time?

MGP:  Yes, although Language Poetry as a movement was more intellectual than Dada, less fun-loving and playful.  It took itself seriously as a political movement too—Marxist and materialist.  And, no, conceptual poetry came a little later and the ideas are different although they come out of language poetry. 

7. Craig Dworkin and Goldsmith have dedicated Against Expression: An Anthology of Conceptual Writing (2011), is Unoriginal Genius: Poetry by Other Means in the New Century your response?

MGP.  Yes, we all worked together in a sense.  The idea behind AGAINST EXPRESSION is that one can produce great writing that is made entirely of other people’s texts.  In the art world, this concept was accepted as early as the 1960s.  Or rather, even earlier: Duchamp is the father of Concrete Poetry.  He showed that one could take the most ordinary of objects and recontextualize or frame it so as to make a great work of art.  In poetry, though, this is more difficult because the basis is language and so it is rare to find a poem that is entirely written in the words of someone else.    Anyway, UNORIGINAL GENIUS is the critical counterpart of AGAINST EXPRESSION.  Craig Dworkin was my student but I have learned so much from him and of course from Kenny Goldsmith.

8. I have more interest in your contribution for Conceptual poetry. You organized a conference Conceptual Poetry and Its Others in 2008. How you got the idea? It was a very important event in his of contemporary literature.

You traced the way forward for avant-geared to positive reception and contemporary recognition for new conceptual writers and “well-establish” avant-garde poets?

MGP: The 2008 Conceptual Poetry conference in Tuscon, Arizona came about when the organizers at their Poetry Center invited me to do whatever I liked.  We called it CONCEPTUALISM AND ITS OTHERS because I didn’t want only to have conceptualist poets.  But some of the “others” didn’t want to come; they had and continue to have no use for Conceptualism.  But we had a wonderful session with Christian Bök, Charles Bernstein, Caroline Bergvall, Craig Dworkin, Kenneth Goldsmith, Tracey Morris, and others.  We invited discussants aside from the main speakers and had Vanessa Place, Brian Reed, Wystan Curnow, etc.  That made it very exciting and contentious.  We tried to understand what Conceptualism was and how it related to earlier poetry and art.

9. You have collaborated with many conceptualists, who would whom you would emphasize?

MGP.  The ones just mentioned, and then also French ones like Franc Lebovici and Jan Baetens. 

10. Your opinion on performance art and conceptual performance. biased question. . how you see the art of Marina Abramovich?

MGP:  Well, performance art is a very big topic—there is so much and of very varying quality.  I like Laurie Anderson very much—especially her early work.

But on the whole I think performance art dates rather quickly and is rather limited. Of course one can reproduce performance but the second time right it is rather less interesting than the first, as with the many performances of Kurt Schwitters’s URSONATE.   And I don’t care much for Marina Abramovich—it’s  a one-liner, I wouldn’t want to see it again. 

11. With Craig you wrote The Sound of Poetry, the Poetry of Sound exploring the value of sound, Hugo Ball’s Dada performances, or those of Jean Cocteau.

You also done on Cage. your remarkable thoughts on American avant-garde music?

MGP  John Cage, to me is one one the great artists of the 20^th century.  He rethought what sound is, what silence is, what one can do with simple, everyday materials, and what FORM is.  But bear in mind that Cage did not like improvisation or typical performance art, that he believed that form was central to any art, and he was amazingly inventive in understanding his time and seeing how art had to change, that it couldn’t remain the same.