Conceptual writing (often used interchangeably with conceptual poetry) is a style of writing which relies on processes and experiments. This can include texts which may be reduced to a set of procedures, a generative instruction or constraint, or a "concept" which precedes and is considered more important than the resulting text(s). As a category, it is closely related to

conceptual art Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called insta ...

History of the term

Although ''conceptual poetry'' may have freely circulated in relation to some text-based

Conceptual art Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called insta ...

works (during the heyday of the movement), "conceptual writing" was coined as an idea in 2003, while ''The UbuWeb Anthology of Conceptual Writing'' was created by

Craig Dworkin Craig Dworkin is an American poet, critic, editor, and Professor of English at the University of Utah. He is founding senior editor of Eclipse, an online archive of 20th-century small-press writing and 21st-century born-digital publications. Ed ...

and

Kenneth Goldsmith Kenneth Goldsmith (born 1961) is an American poetry, poet and critic. He is the founding editor of UbuWeb and since 2020 is the ongoing artist-in-residence at the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing (CPCW) at the University of Pennsylvani ...

(the on-line anthology differs from the 2011 print anthology).

Marjorie Perloff Marjorie Perloff (born September 28, 1931) is an Austrian-born poetry scholar and critic in the United States. Early life Perloff was born Gabriele Mintz into a secularized Jewish family in Vienna. The annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany exacer ...

organized a conference with the title ''Conceptual Poetry and Its Others'' in the summer of 2008, at the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. T ...

Poetry Center.

Derek Beaulieu Derek Alexander Beaulieu (born December 7, 1973 in Montreal, Quebec) is a Canadian poet, publisher and anthologist. Beaulieu studied contemporary Canadian poetics at the University of Calgary and Creative Writing at Roehampton University. His wor ...

, Robert Fitterman and

Vanessa Place Vanessa Place (born 1968) is an American writer and criminal appellate attorney. She is the co-director of the Los Angeles-based Les Figues Press. Place has also worked as an occasional screenwriter on television shows such as '' Law & Order: Sp ...

have also used the terms "conceptual poetry" or "conceptual poetics" in the following years.

Conceptual art and conceptual writing

The first notable difference from conceptual art is that textual-orientated gestures (such as copying, erasing or replacing words) prevail in conceptual writing. The second difference is that, while conceptual strategies "are embedded in the writing process", recent conceptual writing has a relationship with the development and rise of the computers and especially of the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

: "With the rise of the Web, writing has met its photography. ..Faced with an unprecedented amount of available digital text, writing needs to redefine itself to adapt to the new environment of textual abundance. ..The computer encourages us to mimic its workings." The third difference is the concept of ''thinkership''. Robert Fitterman writes that: "Conceptual Writing, in fact, might best be defined not by the strategies used but by the expectations of the readership or thinkership." "Pure conceptualism negates the need for reading in the traditional textual sense—one does not need to 'read' the work as much as think about the idea of the work." The term ''conceptual poetry'' is most often used for two reasons: it brings out the etymological meaning of the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

word

poiesis In philosophy and semiotics, ''poiesis'' (from grc, ποίησις) is "the activity in which a person brings something into being that did not exist before." ''Poiesis'' is etymologically derived from the ancient Greek term ποιεῖν, whi ...

("to make") and it emphasises the fact that this kind of writing has developed historically as a mode of avant-garde poetry (from

Stéphane Mallarmé Stéphane Mallarmé ( , ; 18 March 1842 – 9 September 1898), pen name of Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of ...

’s ''Le Livre'' and

Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 192 ...

Oulipo Oulipo (, short for french: Ouvroir de littérature potentielle; roughly translated: ''"workshop of potential literature"'', stylized ''OuLiPo'') is a loose gathering of (mainly) French-speaking writers and mathematicians who seek to create works ...

and

concrete poetry Concrete poetry is an arrangement of linguistic elements in which the typographical effect is more important in conveying meaning than verbal significance. It is sometimes referred to as visual poetry, a term that has now developed a distinct mea ...

) and, let aside the visual artists who also explore or have explored writing (historical examples include

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...

Joseph Kosuth Joseph Kosuth (; born January 31, 1945), an American conceptual artist, lives in New York and London,

and especially

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...

), is now practiced also within the literary field. It is significant though that many of these writers, including

, are often supported by art institutions and may still come from art backgrounds. ''Conceptual poetry'' (or ''ConPo'') is often used as a name for the entire movement which has more recently emerged and largely originates in the American academic scene of the 2000s (although conceptual writers are present today in most countries with avant-garde traditions). Both the new conceptual writers and their well-established models, the

Language poets The Language poets (or ''L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E'' poets, after the magazine of that name) are an avant-garde group or tendency in United States poetry that emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The poets included: Bernadette Mayer, Leslie Scalapi ...

(among which

David Antin David Abram Antin (February 1, 1932 – October 11, 2016) was an American poet, critic and performance artist. Education and early career Antin was born in New York City in 1932. After graduating from Brooklyn Technical High School, he earned hi ...

Clark Coolidge Clark Coolidge (born February 26, 1939) is an American poet. Background As a teenager, Coolidge attended Classical High School in Providence, Rhode Island. Coolidge attended Brown University, where his father taught in the music department. After ...

Lyn Hejinian Lyn Hejinian (born May 17, 1941) is an American poet, essayist, translator and publisher. She is often associated with the Language poets and is known for her landmark work ''My Life'' (Sun & Moon, 1987, original version Burning Deck, 1980), a ...

Bernadette Mayer Bernadette Mayer (May 12, 1945 – November 22, 2022) was an American poet, writer, and visual artist associated with both the Language poets and the New York School. Early life and education Bernadette Mayer was born in a predominantly Ge ...

Ron Silliman Ron Silliman (born August 5, 1946) is an American poet. He has written and edited over 30 books, and has had his poetry and criticism translated into 12 languages. He is often associated with language poetry. Between 1979 and 2004, Silliman wr ...

also authored conceptual writings), have been placed by the critic

in an American tradition dating back to

Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the Allegheny West neighborhood and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris ...

and the

Objectivists Objectivism is a philosophical system developed by Russian-American writer and philosopher Ayn Rand. She described it as "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement ...

. The

Flarf poetry Flarf poetry was an ''avant-garde'' poetry movement of the early 21st century. The term ''Flarf'' was coined by the poet Gary Sullivan, who also wrote and published the earliest Flarf poems. Its first practitioners, working in loose collaboration o ...

group is often mentioned in the same context and at least some of their works are considered conceptual, but are different in some aspects to the "pure" conceptualists.

places emphasis on the concept of ''unoriginality'' and has dubbed his own course (where students learn ways to appropriate texts) as ''uncreative writing'', described in the book ''Uncreative Writing: Managing Language in the Digital Age'' (2011). Marjorie Perloff, to whom

and Goldsmith have dedicated ''Against Expression: An Anthology of Conceptual Writing'' (2011), considers in ''Unoriginal Genius: Poetry by Other Means in the New Century'' (2012) that the "paradigmatic work" of the "unoriginal genius" is

Walter Benjamin Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic and essayist. An eclectic thinker, combining elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, and Jewish mys ...

’s

Arcades Project ''Passagenwerk'' or ''Arcades Project'' was an unfinished project of German philosopher and cultural critic Walter Benjamin, written between 1927 and 1940. An enormous collection of writings on the city life of Paris in the 19th century, it was ...

(which inspired the concept of Goldsmith’s 2015 book, ''Capital'').

Criticism

In ''The Poetry Project Newsletter'', #231 of April/May 2012,

Johanna Drucker Johanna Drucker (born May 30, 1952) is an American author, book artist, visual theorist, and cultural critic. Her scholarly writing documents and critiques visual language: letterforms, typography, visual poetry, art, and lately, digital art aest ...

publishes an article named "Beyond Conceptualisms: Poetics after Critique and the End of the Individual Voice", in which she considers that "Conceptual writing was intriguing and provocative. In the last few years, its practices have generated much debate. But as its outlines have become more defined, it seems to be passing into another phase. Institutionalization often signals that energetic innovation is becoming history or at least has ceased to break new ground. ..Conceptualism is probably over now, even in its newest iterations". Canadian poet and essayist,

Alan Davies Alan Roger Davies (; born 6 March 1966) is an English stand-up comedian, writer, actor and TV presenter. He is best known for his portrayal of the title role in the BBC mystery drama series ''Jonathan Creek'' (1997–2016) and as the only perm ...

published on the blog of

Poetry Foundation The Poetry Foundation is an American literary society that seeks to promote poetry and lyricism in the wider culture. It was formed from ''Poetry'' magazine, which it continues to publish, with a 2003 gift of $200 million from philanthropist Rut ...

(known for publishing regularly texts by/on

Flarf Flarf poetry was an ''avant-garde'' poetry movement of the early 21st century. The term ''Flarf'' was coined by the poet Gary Sullivan, who also wrote and published the earliest Flarf poems. Its first practitioners, working in loose collaboration o ...

and Conceptual poets) a satire called ''Notes on Conceptualism'' (after the same-titled book by Fitterman and Place), containing lines such as "Conceptual poetry is mainly about unearthing neuroses in the minds of the people who make it. By far and away / the most common of these is obsessive-compulsive disorder" and "Conceptual poetry is constructed primarily by tools – by reason. There is relatively little in it of the less blatant faculties – imagination / emotion / memory". In ''Theses on Antisubjectivist Dogma'',

Keston Sutherland Keston M. Sutherland is a British poet, and Professor of Poetics at the University of Sussex. He was the editor of the poetics and critical theory journal ''QUID'' and is co-editor (with Andrea Brady) of Barque Press. His poetry has been compared ...

considers that "Conceptual poets and antisubjectivists of every other poetical stripe ..are indifferent or oblivious to the history of poetic technique", as "there is no such thing as 'traditional poetry' and there is no such thing as 'the Lyric I'. The use of the first person pronoun in poetry is as various and complex as the use of language itself". Largely critical of the "closed" and "exclusive" politics of avant-garde groups, Amy King points out the strategies through which the American conceptual writers have achieved institutionalization: "Now crowned the descendants of

Language Poetry The Language poets (or ''L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E'' poets, after the magazine of that name) are an avant-garde group or tendency in United States poetry that emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The poets included: Bernadette Mayer, Leslie Scalapi ...

, both of these groups have calculated and curated a lineage, garnering attention by using the capitalist pop culture tool of sensationalism, specifically a faux-conflict, curated imitative performances of artists who successfully achieved status via the cult of personality .. along with prolific referencing, reviews, and applause for each other’s efforts. ..What took the Language poets a few decades, these two groups have achieved within a fraction of the time: the paved road to institutional acclaim, centrality, and canonization." Amy King continues in this article to denounce the "reductive" narratives of the Conceptualists, the questionable "institutional critique or capitalist unrest / disruption" they have brought and "the seamless perpetuation of commodification", doubting whether "Conceptual performances would hold up without the theory that explains and contextualizes it" or whether "the work sustain without the institutions they are framed in and supported by". A recurrent critique regards "the limited locus and demographic". In the second part of her article, Amy King criticizes a large number of claims authored by

and notes

’s recent appearances on the TV and at the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...

. She provides here the following clarification: "Like many poets, I continue to use a number of techniques over which these groups have become proprietary. The techniques themselves are neutral; how one employs them is where poetics begins. Attempting to trademark these techniques (i.e. "Conceptualism," "Flarf") is precisely a form of capitalist reification. I'm not out to deny anyone institutional participation or access to resources; rather, I want to call attention to the claim these groups purport to block capitalism while intentionally employing capitalist techniques ..to achieve and secure status within the capitalist structure."

2015 controversy

Following the concept of ''Seven American Deaths and Disasters'',

read on March 13 ''The Body of Michael Brown'', a text consisting of Michael Brown’s St. Louis County autopsy report rearranged as to end with the phrase "The remaining male genitalia system is unremarkable". This caused strong negatives reactions not among the audience, but on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

and other social network

Apparently, the recording of the performance was not made public by the

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

(where the text was read) according to Goldsmith's wish; he also claimed that "my speaker’s fee from the Interrupt 3 event will be donated to the family of Michael Brown". In 2009,

had started tweeting

Margaret Mitchell Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell (November 8, 1900 – August 16, 1949) was an American novelist and journalist. Mitchell wrote only one novel, published during her lifetime, the American Civil War-era novel '' Gone with the Wind'', for which she wo ...

’s

Gone With the Wind Gone with the Wind most often refers to: * Gone with the Wind (novel), ''Gone with the Wind'' (novel), a 1936 novel by Margaret Mitchell * Gone with the Wind (film), ''Gone with the Wind'' (film), the 1939 adaptation of the novel Gone with the Win ...

in order to highlight its racist language and stereotypes, according to an artist statement that was posted on

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

. However, a Change.org petition from 2015 demanded the blacklisting of Place from the Association of Writers and Writing Programs for "propagating offensive material", as the authors of the petition consider that her ''Gone With the Wind'' project is "racially insensitive, if not downright racist" and that it "re-inscribes that text’s racism". On May 18, 2015, the Association announced that Place had been removed from the committee. In spite of

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

poet

Tracie Morris Tracie Morris is an American poet. She is also a performance artist, vocalist, voice consultant, creative non-fiction writer, critic, scholar, bandleader, actor and non-profit consultant. Morris is from Brooklyn, New York. Morris' experimental so ...

publicly defending Goldsmith's gesture and, while Faith Holland and Goldsmith himself have argued against this kind of non-literary reading, both Goldsmith and Place's projects have been considered by many unacceptable, politically incorrect h. Voices from the poetry community have also expressed strong criticism. In the article ''There's a New Movement in American Poetry and It's Not Kenneth Goldsmith'',

Cathy Park Hong Cathy Park Hong (born August 7, 1976) is an American poet, writer, and professor who has published three volumes of poetry. Much of her work includes mixed language and serialized narrative. She was named on the 2021 Time 100 list for her writing ...

writes that:

"Poetry is becoming progressively fluid, merging protest and performance into its practice. The era of Conceptual Poetry’s ahistorical nihilism is over and we have entered a new era, the poetry of social engagement."

Post-conceptual poetry

In ''Notes on Post-conceptual Poetry'',

Felix Bernstein Felix Bernstein may refer to: *Felix Bernstein (mathematician) (1878–1956), German mathematician *Felix Bernstein (artist) Felix Bernstein (born May 20, 1992) is a performance artist, video artist, writer, and cultural critic. Bernstein was bo ...

(son of the Language poet

Charles Bernstein Charles Bernstein may refer to: * Charles Bernstein (composer) (born 1943), American composer of film and television scores * Charles Bernstein (poet) Charles Bernstein (born April 4, 1950) is an American poet, essayist, editor, and literary sc ...

) writes about a recent wave of "second-generation Conceptual poetry", "in dialogue with" and reacting to ''Conceptual poetry'', as part of a "turn" to what Bernstein calls "

queer ''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are not heterosexual or cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against those with same-sex desires or relationships in the late 19th century. Beginning in the lat ...

structuralism". These poets may often combine "confessional/affective/lyrical" and "mechanical/conceptual" aspects, while engaging with the "death of work" (in symmetry with the "death of the reader" of previous theory): "This would mean falling into the messy muck of libidinal flows (or the Internet or ‘whatever’) without leaving a trace of authorship and without giving in to those dominant modes of leftist discourse (that mark the academy, the art world, and politics), which require the artwork to pave the way for didactic redemption, and require that art be boxed into the framings of queer theory or speculative

materialism Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds matter to be the fundamental substance in nature, and all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. According to philosophical materiali ...

poststructuralism Post-structuralism is a term for philosophical and literary forms of theory that both build upon and reject ideas established by structuralism, the intellectual project that preceded it. Though post-structuralists all present different critiques ...

or affect studies or Badiousian- Zizekian, etc. That is to say, that the Post-conceptual poet could make works that are not afforded privilege of ‘example’ in the seemingly endless war between ‘neoliberal versus subversive’ or ‘subjective/affective versus mechanical’ or the various attempts to wield both subject and object ..together vis-à-vis universalized particulars like the term ‘

’."

cites as examples Sophia Le Fraga,

Andrew Durbin Andrew Durbin is an American poet, novelist, and editor. As of 2019, he has served as editor-in-chief of Frieze magazine. Prior to his position at Frieze, he co-founded Company Gallery, served as the Talks Curator at the Poetry Project, and serve ...

, J. Gordon Faylor,

Trisha Low Trisha Low is an American author and poet. Life and career Low graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA and New York University with an MA in Performance Studies. She contributed to the 2011 publication, ''Against Expression: An ...

Josef Kaplan Josef may refer to *Josef (given name) *Josef (surname) *Josef (film), ''Josef'' (film), a 2011 Croatian war film *Musik Josef, a Japanese manufacturer of musical instruments {{disambiguation ...

, Joey Yearous-algozin, Holly Melgard, Danny Snelson,

Steve McLaughlin Steven John McLaughlin (born October 2, 1971) is a former American college and professional football player who was a placekicker in the National Football League (NFL) and the Arena Football League. He played college football for the University ...

, Steve Zultanski, while also mentioning in a footnote the Goldsmith-curated project ''Poetry Will Be Made By All'', which contains 1,000 books by 1,000 young poets (in English and several other languages). Containing both conceptual and lyrical writings (or a mix of both), the books published in this collection may be considered in some ways ''Post-conceptual''.

Works classified as conceptual writings

Historical examples

Denis Diderot Denis Diderot (; ; 5 October 171331 July 1784) was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer, best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the ''Encyclopédie'' along with Jean le Rond d'Alembert. He was a promine ...

: ''

Jacques le fataliste et son maître ''Jacques the Fatalist and his Master'' (french: Jacques le fataliste et son maître) is a novel by Denis Diderot, written during the period 1765–1780. The first French edition was published posthumously in 1796, but it was known earlier in Germ ...

'' (1796) – direct appropriation of segments of

Laurence Sterne Laurence Sterne (24 November 1713 – 18 March 1768), was an Anglo-Irish novelist and Anglican cleric who wrote the novels ''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'' and ''A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy'', published ...

's ''

Tristram Shandy Tristram may refer to: Literature * the title character of ''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'', a novel by Laurence Sterne * the title character of ''Tristram of Lyonesse'', an epic poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne *"Tristra ...

'' *

: ''Le livre'' (1893-1898, unfinished) – generative procedures of a modular book whose actual content, besides poetic fragments, is not mentioned at all in the draft manuscripts *

: ''Rendez-vous du Dimanche 6 Février 1916'' (published in 1937) – four typewritten fragments from inexistent whole text(s); ''Man Before the Mirror'' (published in 1934) – literary ready-made, a text supposedly written by a German friend of Man Ray, translated into English and signed by

Rrose Sélavy Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...

Louis Aragon Louis Aragon (, , 3 October 1897 – 24 December 1982) was a French poet who was one of the leading voices of the surrealist movement in France. He co-founded with André Breton and Philippe Soupault the surrealist review ''Littérature''. He wa ...

: ''Suicide'' (1920) – transcription of the alphabet, ordered in five lines (a continuous version was published by

Aram Saroyan Aram Saroyan (born September 25, 1943) is an American poet, novelist, biographer, memoirist and playwright, who is especially known for his minimalist poetry, famous examples of which include the one-word poem "lighght" and a one-letter poem comp ...

under the title ''STEAK'', in the 1968 volume ''Aram Saroyan'') *

Tristan Tzara Tristan Tzara (; ; born Samuel or Samy Rosenstock, also known as S. Samyro; – 25 December 1963) was a Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist. Also active as a journalist, playwright, literary and art critic, comp ...

: ''Pour faire un poème dadaïste'', from ''Dada manifeste sur l'arnour faible et l'amour amer'' (1920) – instructions for the creation of a Dadaist collage poem, followed by an example *

Blaise Cendrars Frédéric-Louis Sauser (1 September 1887 – 21 January 1961), better known as Blaise Cendrars, was a Swiss-born novelist and poet who became a naturalized French citizen in 1916. He was a writer of considerable influence in the European mod ...

: ''Kodak (Documentaire)'' (1924) – 20 poems appropriating phrases from

Gustave Le Rouge Gustave Henri Joseph Le Rouge (22 July 1867 - 24 February 1938) was a French writer who embodied the evolution of modern science fiction at the beginning of the 20th century, by moving it away from the juvenile adventures of Jules Verne and in ...

's ''Le Mystérieux Docteur Cornelius'' *

C.K. Ogden Charles Kay Ogden (; 1 June 1889 – 20 March 1957) was an English linguist, philosopher, and writer. Described as a polymath but also an eccentric and outsider, he took part in many ventures related to literature, politics, the arts, and philo ...

: ''Anna Livia Plurabelle'' (1931) – homolinguistic translation, in

Basic English Basic English (British American Scientific International and Commercial English) is an English-based controlled language created by the linguist and philosopher Charles Kay Ogden as an international auxiliary language, and as an aid for teach ...

, of a fragment from

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...

Finnegans Wake ''Finnegans Wake'' is a novel by Irish literature, Irish writer James Joyce. It is well known for its experimental style and reputation as one of the most difficult works of fiction in the Western canon. It has been called "a work of fiction whi ...

William Butler Yeats William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...

: ''Mona Lisa'' (1936) – a transcription of a passage of Walter H. Pater's ''Studies in the History of Renaissance'' into Poundian free verse *

Wiener Gruppe The Wiener Gruppe (''Vienna Group'') was a small and loose avant-garde constellation of Austrian poets and writers, which arose from an older and wider postwar association of artists called Art-Club. The group was formed around 1953 under the influ ...

(Bayer / Rühm / Wiener): ''Akustisches Cabaret'' (1959) – list of "ideas" for an "acoustic cabaret" *

Brion Gysin Brion Gysin (19 January 1916 – 13 July 1986) was a British-Canadian painter, writer, sound poet, performance artist and inventor of experimental devices. He is best known for his use of the cut-up technique, alongside his close friend, the ...

: ''Minutes to Go'' (1960) – cut-ups (technique also applied by

William S. Burroughs William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular cultur ...

) *

Raymond Queneau Raymond Queneau (; 21 February 1903 – 25 October 1976) was a French novelist, poet, critic, editor and co-founder and president of Oulipo ('' Ouvroir de littérature potentielle''), notable for his wit and cynical humour. Biography Queneau wa ...

: Cent mille milliards de poèmes (1961) – sonnets whose lines which may be recombined to obtain 100,000,000,000,000 sonnets (see

constraint-based writing); ''Les fondements de la literature'' (1976) – appropriation of

David Hilbert David Hilbert (; ; 23 January 1862 – 14 February 1943) was a German mathematician, one of the most influential mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Hilbert discovered and developed a broad range of fundamental ideas in many a ...

's ''Foundations of Mathematics'' with replaced words *

: ''Bond Sonnets'' (1965) – collage sonnets using words from

Ian Fleming Ian Lancaster Fleming (28 May 1908 – 12 August 1964) was a British writer who is best known for his postwar ''James Bond'' series of spy novels. Fleming came from a wealthy family connected to the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co., a ...

’s 1961 novel Thunderball (which plagiarized the same-titled collaborative screenplay) selected with a random number generator *

Ted Berrigan Ted Berrigan (November 15, 1934 – July 4, 1983) was an American poet. Early life Berrigan was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on November 15, 1934. After high school, he spent a year at Providence College before joining the U.S. Army. After ...

: ''A Conversation with

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fi ...

'' (1966) – a fake interview misattributing to

quotes by Fernando Arabel,

and others. *

Dan Graham Daniel Graham (March 31, 1942 – February 19, 2022) was an American visual artist, writer, and curator in the writer-artist tradition. In addition to his visual works, he published a large array of critical and speculative writing that spanned ...

: ''Exclusion Principle'' and ''Poem-Schema'' (1966) *

Joseph Kosuth Joseph Kosuth (; born January 31, 1945), an American conceptual artist, lives in New York and London,

: ''Purloined: A Novel'' (1966-2000) – collage of single pages photocopied from over 100 different novels (the only addition is changed page numbering) * Pedro Xisto: ''Vogaláxia'' (1966) – transcription of every possible 5-letter combination of the 5 vowels *

León Ferrari León Ferrari (September 3, 1920 – July 25, 2013) was an Argentine contemporary conceptual artist. During his extended art career (1954-2013), his artworks often protested the Argentinian government, the imperialist west, and the Church. Fe ...

: ''Palabras Ajenas'' (1967) – a collection of quotes from diverse sources *

: ''Novel Poem'' (1968) – poem composed of phrases copied from contemporary popular novels *

: ''

A, A Novel ''a, A Novel'' is a 1968 book by the American artist Andy Warhol published by Grove Press. It is a nearly word-for-word transcription of tapes recorded by Warhol and Ondine over a two-year period in 1965–1967. The Novel ''a, A Novel'', Warh ...

'' (1968) – transcription (by different typists, not by Warhol himself) of recordings done by Warhol following Ondine with a tape recorder (similar concepts have later been enacted by Ed Friedman in The Telephone Book and by Kenneth Goldsmith in Soliloquy) *

Vito Acconci Vito Acconci (, ; January 24, 1940 – April 27, 2017) was an influential American performance, video and installation artist, whose diverse practice eventually included sculpture, architectural design, and landscape design. His foundational p ...

: ''Transference'' (1969) – transcription of the single letters lining the margins of pages from various pages in Roget’s ''Thesaurus'' (also see other works gathered in the 2006 edition ''Language to Cover a Page: The Early Writings of Vito Acconci'') *

Peter Handke Peter Handke (; born 6 December 1942) is an Austrian novelist, playwright, translator, poet, film director, and screenwriter. He was awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature "for an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has explored t ...

: '' Die Aufstellung des 1. FC Nürnberg vom 27.1.1968'' (1969) - poem consisting of the players' from the 1. FC Nürnberg names as printed in sports magazines *

J. G. Ballard James Graham Ballard (15 November 193019 April 2009) was an English novelist, short story writer, satirist, and essayist known for provocative works of fiction which explored the relations between human psychology, technology, sex, and mass medi ...

: ''Mae West’s Reduction Mammoplasty'' (1970), ''Princess Margaret’s Facelift'' (1970), ''Queen Elizabeth's Rhinoplasty'' (1976) – appropriation of medical case studies, in which anonymous subjects ("patient X") were replaced with the names of the celebrity in each title *

Gerald Ferguson Gerald Ferguson (January 29, 1937 – October 8, 2009) was a conceptual artist and painter who lived and taught in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Born in Cincinnati he was both a Canadian and US citizen. Background After receiving his MFA from Ohio Un ...

: ''The Standard Corpus of Present Day English Language Usage Arranged by Word Length and Alphabetized Within Word Length'' (1970) – dictionary of English words sorted by word length * Michael Harvey: ''White Papers'' (1971) * Ulises Carrión: ''tatatá'' (1972) *

Bernard Heidsieck Bernard Heidsieck (November 28, 1928 – November 22, 2014) was a French sound poet, associated with various movements throughout a long career: including Beat, American Fluxus, and minimalism. Heidsieck was born in Paris. In the course of his car ...

: ''Vaduz'' (1974) *

: ''My/My/My'' (published in ''Asylums'', 1975) – list of objects beginning with the first-person possessive; ''I and The'' (published in ''The Sophist'', 1979) – 1,350 words compiled from ''Word Frequencies in Spoken American English'' by Hatvig Dahl *

Georges Perec Georges Perec (; 7 March 1936 – 3 March 1982) was a French novelist, filmmaker, documentalist, and essayist. He was a member of the Oulipo group. His father died as a soldier early in the Second World War and his mother was killed in the Holoc ...

: Tentative d'épuisement d'un lieu parisien (1975) – description of all the things observed by Perec in Place Saint-Sulpice during three days, at different times of the day *

: ''Eruditio ex Memoria'' (1977) – novel composed of "notes from Catholic school classes, letters from school officials, quotations, definitions, commonplaces" (also read List of Journal Ideas and Writing Experiments) *

Charles Reznikoff Charles Reznikoff (August 31, 1894 – January 22, 1976) was an American poet best known for his long work, ''Testimony: The United States (1885–1915), Recitative'' (1934–1979). The term Objectivist was coined for him. The multi-volume ''Test ...

: ''Testimony'' (1978) – transcription and editing of various court documents (similar concept enacted by

in ''Statement of Facts'') *

Christopher Knowles Christopher Knowles (born 1959) is an American poet and painter. He was born in New York City on May 4, 1959, and has received a diagnosis of possible brain damage. He is often referred to as autistic.Kathy Acker Kathy Acker (April 18, 1947 isputed– November 30, 1997) was an American experimental novelist, playwright, essayist, and postmodernist writer, known for her idiosyncratic and transgressive writing that dealt with themes such as childhood trau ...

: ''Great Expectations: A Novel'' (1983) – passages from

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...

’

Great Expectations ''Great Expectations'' is the thirteenth novel by Charles Dickens and his penultimate completed novel. It depicts the education of an orphan nicknamed Pip (Great Expectations), Pip (the book is a ''bildungsroman''; a coming-of-age story). It ...

and

Pierre Guyotat Pierre Guyotat (9 January 1940 – 7 February 2020) was a French writer. Early life Pierre Guyotat was born on 9 January 1940 in Bourg-Argental, Loire. Literary career 1960s–1970s Guyotat wrote his first novel, '' Sur un cheval'', in 1960. ...

’s ''Eden, Eden, Eden'' are plagiarized and rewritten in the opening of the book *

: X (1983) – collection of mesostics and examples of writing through * José Luis Ayala Olazaval: ''Canto Sideral'' (1984) – combinatory book * Sergio Pesutic: ''La hinteligencia militar'' (1986) – blank book * Michael Klauke: ''Ad Infinitum'' (1988) – appropriation of Balzac’s short story

Sarrasine ''Sarrasine'' is a novella written by Honoré de Balzac. It was published in 1830, and is part of his '' Comédie Humaine''. Introduction Balzac, who began writing in 1819 while living alone in the rue Lesdiguières, undertook the composition ...

(1830) in which each word was replaced "with vocabulary randomly drawn from ten other books in rotating sequence:

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequel ...

’s

Alice in Wonderland ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (commonly ''Alice in Wonderland'') is an 1865 English novel by Lewis Carroll. It details the story of a young girl named Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world of anthropomorphic creatur ...

William Faulkner William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Faulkner spent most of ...

’s

Absalom, Absalom! ''Absalom, Absalom!'' is a novel by the American author William Faulkner, first published in 1936. Taking place before, during, and after the American Civil War, it is a story about three families of the American South, with a focus on the life o ...

Thomas Pynchon Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. ( , ; born May 8, 1937) is an American novelist noted for his dense and complex novels. His fiction and non-fiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, genres and themes, including history, music, scie ...

’s

The Crying of Lot 49 ''The Crying of Lot 49'' is a 1966 novel by American author Thomas Pynchon. The shortest of Pynchon's novels, the plot follows Oedipa Maas, a young Californian woman who begins to embrace a conspiracy theory as she possibly unearths a centuries-ol ...

Roland Barthes Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 26 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popular ...

’s

Mythologies Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrat ...

Homer Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...

’s

Odyssey The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major Ancient Greek literature, ancient Greek Epic poetry, epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by moder ...

Tom Wolfe Thomas Kennerly Wolfe Jr. (March 2, 1930 – May 14, 2018)Some sources say 1931; ''The New York Times'' and Reuters both initially reported 1931 in their obituaries before changing to 1930. See and was an American author and journalist widely ...

’s

Radical Chic Radical chic is the fashionable practice of upper-class people associating with politically radical people and causes. Coined in the 1970 article "Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny's" by journalist Tom Wolfe, the term has become widely used in l ...

Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Word ...

’s

The Return of the Native ''The Return of the Native'' is Thomas Hardy's sixth published novel. It first appeared in the magazine ''Belgravia'', a publication known for its sensationalism, and was presented in twelve monthly installments from January to December 1878. Be ...

, J.L. Austin’s Sense and Sensibilia,

Eric Hoffer Eric Hoffer (July 25, 1902 – May 21, 1983) was an American moral and social philosopher. He was the author of ten books and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in February 1983. His first book, '' The True Believer'' (1951), was wide ...

’s The Temper of Our Time and

’s

Ulysses Ulysses is one form of the Roman name for Odysseus, a hero in ancient Greek literature. Ulysses may also refer to: People * Ulysses (given name), including a list of people with this name Places in the United States * Ulysses, Kansas * Ulysse ...

" *

Claude Closky Claude Closky (born 22 May 1963) is a French Contemporary Artist who lives and works in Paris, France. Reception Closky won the "Grand prix des Arts plastiques" (1999) and the Marcel Duchamp Prize (2005) awarded by the ADIAF. Dike Blair wro ...

: ''Les 1000 premiers nombres classés par ordre alphabétique'' (1989) – self-explanatory title (the first 1000 numbers classified in alphabetical order); ''Mon Catalogue'' (1999) – catalogue of ads (on products the author claims to own) in which the second-person pronouns have been changed to first-person pronouns

Recent examples

In the USA

, ''Dure'' (2004); ''Strand'' (2005); ''Parse'' (2008) * Robert Fitterman, ''Metropolis'' (2000-2004); ''Rob the Plagiarist: Others Writing'' (2008); ''No, Wait. Yep. Definitely Still Hate Myself.'' (2014) *

, ''No. 111 2.7.92-10.20.96'' (1997); ''Fidget'' (2000); ''Soliloquy'' (2001); ''Day'' (2003); ''The Weather'' (2005); ''Traffic'' (2007); ''Sports'' (2008); ''Seven American Deaths and Disasters'' (2013); ''Capital'' (2015) *

, ''Dies: A Sentence'' (2005); ''Tragodía 1: Statement of Facts'' (2010); ''Boycott'' (2013) For an exhaustive list, check the author index of ''Against Expression: An Anthology of Conceptual Writing'' and ''I'll Drown My Book: Conceptual Writing by Women'' (edited by

Caroline Bergvall Caroline Bergvall (born 1962) is a French-Norwegian poet who has lived in England since 1989. Her work includes the adaption of Old English and Old Norse texts into audio text and sound art performances. Life and education Born in Hamburg, Germ ...

, Laynie Browne, Teresa Carmody and

Around the worl

* Michelle Grangaud, ''Poèmes fondus'' (1997); ''Calendrier des poètes'' (2001); ''Calendrier des fêtes nationales'' (2003) (

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

) * Gary J. Shipley, ''Serial Kitsch'' (2014) (

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

) * S. R. Jimmy, ''Conversation'' ''between'' ''Vladimir'' ''and'' ''Estragon'' (2016), (

) * Emma Kay, ''Worldview'' (1999) (

) *

Christian Bök Christian Bök, FRSC (; born August 10, 1966 in Toronto, Canada) is a Canadian poet known for unusual and experimental works. He is the author of ''Eunoia'', which won the Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize. Life and work He was born "Christian Boo ...

Eunoia In rhetoric, ''eunoia'' ( grc, εὔνοιᾰ, eúnoia, well mind; beautiful thinking) is the good will speakers cultivate between themselves and their audiences, a condition of receptivity. In Book VIII of the '' Nicomachean Ethics'', Aristot ...

(2001); ''Busted Sirens''; ''The Xenotext Experiment'' (

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

) * Cia Rinne, ''zaroum'' (2001) (

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

) * Alejandro Cesarco, ''Index (a novel)'' (2003) (

Uruguay Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...

) * Anamaría Briede, ''Escritura clarividente'' (2004) (

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

) *

Moez Surani Moez Surani (born April 10, 1979) is a Canadian poet and artist. He is the author of the poetry collections ''Reticent Bodies'' and ''Floating Life'', and the booklength poem ''عملية Operación Opération Operation 行动 Операция''. ...

, ''عملية Operación Opération Operation 行动 Операция'' (2016) (

) *

Christof Migone Christof Migone is a Swiss-born experimental sound artist and writer, formerly based in Montreal, now living in Toronto. He is assistant professor at the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Western Ontario Migone's solo recordings in ...

, ''La première phrase et le dernier mot'' (2004) (Canada) *

, ''Fig'' (2005) (United Kingdom) *

Donato Mancini Donato Mancini is a Canadian poet.

, ''Ligature'' (2005) (Canada) * Simon Morris, ''Re-writing Freud'' (2005) (United Kingdom) *

, ''fractal economies'' (2006); ''Flatland'' (2007); ''Local Colour'' (2008); ''Please, No More Poetry: the Poetry of derek beaulieu'' (2013) (Canada) * Shigeru Matsui, ''Quantum Poem'' (2006) (

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

) * Pablo Katchadjian, ''El Martín Fierro ordenado alfabéticamente'' (2007); ''El Aleph engordado'' (2009); ''Mucho trabajo'' (2011); ''La cadena del desánimo'' (2013) (

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

) * Leevi Lehto, ''Päivä'' (2007) (Finland) * Paal Bjelke Andersen, ''Til folket'' (2000-2008); ''Dugnad'' (2010); ''The Grefsen Address'' (2010) (

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

) * Peder Alexis Olsson, ''Tändstickor'' (2008) (Sweden) * Ida Börjel, ''Konsumentköplagen: juris lyrik'' (2008) (Sweden) * Anna Hallberg, ''Mil'' (2008) (Sweden) * Rasmus Graff, ''patchwork'' (2008) (Sweden) * Riccardo Boglione, ''Ritmo D'' (2009), ''Tapas sin libro'' (2011); ''The Perfect Library'' (2013); ''Extremo Explicit'' (2014); ''It Is Foul Weather In Us All'' (2018); ''Teoría de la novela. Novela'' (2021) (Uruguay) *

Belén Gache Belén Gache (Buenos Aires, 1960) is a Spanish-Argentinian novelist and experimental writer. Of Spanish and Gibraltarian descent, she was born in Buenos Aires. She lives in Madrid. She graduated from the University of Buenos Aires where she was pro ...

, ''Meditaciones sobre la revolución'', (2014), ''After Lorca'', (2019), (Spain) * Martin Glaz Serup, ''Marken'' (2010); ''Fredag'' (2014) (Denmark) * Pejk Malinovski, ''Den store danske drømmebog'' (2010) (Denmark) * Ulf Karl Olov Nilsson, ''Hjälp, vem är jag? – anteckningar ur en terapi'' (2010) (Sweden) * Alberto Pimenta, ''al Face-book'' (2012) (

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

) * Piotr Marecki, ''Wiersze za sto dolarów'' (2017), ''Sezon grzewczy'' (2018), ''Polska przydrożna'' (2020) (

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

) *

Daniele Pantano Daniele Pantano (born February 10, 1976) is a poet, essayist, literary translator, artist, editor, and scholar. He was born in Langenthal, Switzerland, of Sicilian and German parentage. Pantano holds degrees in philosophy, literature, and crea ...

, ''ORAKL'' (2017), ''Ten Million and One Silences'' (2021), ''333'' (2022), ''HIMMEL-BIMMEL-BAM-BAM'' (2022) (

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

)

References

{{Reflist, 30em

Sources

Charles Bernstein’s "wreading" experiments

Kenneth Goldsmith books available on Monoskop

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