I too detect an at least partial human presence in these works. Noah Eli Gordon suggested the poem generator Erika T. Carter as the procedural culprit (though of course there was a human element in who fed her the input), and looking at some of her products, I can see where he’s coming from. There’s certainly a degree of similitude between “her” products and those in the anthology. But I’m pretty sure that I also recognize the source text for “my” work in the “anthology”:

“my” last stanza in the piece in the anthology:

A voice
A long girl
Like a girl
Of wilderness

the last stanza of a piece I “wrote”:

a filthy animal in my hands
a laugh freeing your long nudity
radiating your long, bright form.

Seems a certain similitude there, no? Or perhaps I’m committing the crime of Heisenberg’s observer?

Another reason I can’t help but this all quite amusing is that what I perceive to be the source text is itself a cutup, a piece “borrowed” from Georges Bataille. So then, as with so much flarfist and source-text based work, the question seems to be, what of the poem I write is “mine”? And perhaps a Buddhist tenet that nothing which can be preceded with “my” can be considered part of one’s Self is important to remember here.

In either case, it’s not terribly interesting. I would probably feel differently if the scope of the project were explained up front. But people were under the impression that it was “a legitimate text”. It’s sort of the equivalent of photoshopping someone else’s body to your face. I mean, I get it. But clever it’s not. And it’s not new.

I do think that the anthology actually does have a title: if you look at p.2 of the pdf, it appears to be *Principal Hand*.

Also: The instant I saw my poem I tho I didn’t remember writing it I was all like ah! I am as proud of this piece as “I” is of any of the poems “IS supposedly wrote.

oh check this out too:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4932117.ISSUE_ONE_fall_2008

Yeah, you’re right. My response was a little premature, I just finished reading Ron Silliman’s ridiculous grumpy old man response. However, to me the event was still not really a provocation. I’m actually shocked at the amount of crybaby prissy bitterness that such a remarkably TAME act is able to produce, it’s unbelievable! There really isn’t anything interesting in the way they constructed the anthology itself, the only merit seems to be in laughing at the uptight responses of those “included” in it… I just assumed up front that the whole event would be more generally recognized as tame, unprovocative, lighthearted as is mirrored in most of the positive and approbative responses. It seems to either piss off an ultra-conservative egoist blowhard element or just be generally approved, but in this sense I think it should be judged insofar as the former is an incredibly easy category to troll, there really isn’t any sport or sharp experiment or talent in the act, the results are entirely predictable and the provocation thermometer falls flat in this sense. I guess it’s kind of tragicomic watching idiots throw tantrums over the completely tame inclusion of their names in some meaningless .pdf file on the internet, inexorably hooked into whatever fucked up cathexes are making them defend whatever kind of idealized (profitable) reputation they’ve staked out for themselves… but after this it just gets kind of sad.

> The joke is situationist in spirit because of the uproar it’s causing within a
> community that really should not be so devoted to ownership and ego.

Sure, but I was trying to point out the difference between “situationist spirit” and situationist praxis, or the aesthetics of having one without the other instead of combining them. The situationists held no respect whatsoever for any pretense surrounding literary ownership, they sneered at it constantly, ala: “Furthermore, I do not believe having had great merit here, because there were many of us who were assuring the reproduction and distribution of subversive writings. More generally, the spirit in matters of revolutionary publishing was such that no one took it into their head to quibble about questions of copyright or literary property, under pain of being the general laughingstock or enduring insults.” (http://www.notbored.org/interdiction.html)

It seems more than obvious that something remotely resembling situationist practice (or something contemporary worthy of the relation) would have been on the level of _actual piracy_. Actual poems associated with the actual “known” and established authors who wrote them, circulated en masse through some kind of scandalous means. _Then_ we would have had a real uproar. Right now there is a ‘mature’ and ’sophisticated’ motley of smug careerist/liberal typecasted outlines, aging publication energies and outmoded complacencies that are ‘erudite’ or at least well read enough to be “in the know” or “with it” concerning the joke, while simultaneously remaining attached enough to literary property to not desire/envision/dream/fancy anything more of an aesthetic supersession in both the humor and provocation departments. Provoking curmudgeon egoist nutjobs whose zombie-forms of literary morality from a bygone era control them is one thing, but a more serious and radical (and even fucking hilarious) provocation of the complacent liberal/bobo/celebrityist crowd would have been more interesting and gutsy in my opinion, more politically up to date even if you care for such contrasts, not to mention capable of producing a far more dazzling and outrageous controversy. Provocation is aesthetically fertile and interesting when it involves challenge and risk in its means of upsetting people, when it goes farther than what is expected of it or than what is harmless and more or less permitted in the historical moment. This anthology was effortless and lazy in that respect, perhaps even “pre-avant” if we want to mock the hilarious “post-avant” marketing jargon in use right now. To be sure, there is no challenge in upsetting the copyright dragons in the moment because a widespread copyright/copyleft programming continues to police almost all expression. This anthology is like saying the Creative Commons is relevant or on par with anything radical or avant-garde in publishing and dissemination right now.

I am curious- what would the reaction be had three people using pseudonyms published a hardback book featuring prints of paintings or graphic art attributed randomly to living and dead visual artists? If it were presented in an art gallery, I doubt there would be a problem. The gallery creates context. In a bookstore, though? As a pdf on the net?

If the artists objected would they be accused of being vain or egotistical? Would it wind up being a legal question of free speech? Or would the artists be expected to shut up and quit whining and be grateful to be acknowledged no matter the circumstances?

If this is a comment on the shallowness of the art world, of the “poetry world” specifically, OR if it is a way to vet the philosophically/educationally challenged, the “poets” included here are *damned if they do damned if they don’t*. (Ego or ignorance? An admission that “it (being poetry and authorship) really doesn’t matter”? Pick your response.) If there is a connection to Godot, this is it.

I feel a bit insulted by my exclusion in the very first issue of FOR GODOT. Frankly, I think that my submission was equal – and in many cases – superior to many of the authors that the editors selected for their maiden voyage. Granted, I would be humbled to be in the same pages as Artaud, Reverdy and Tristan Tsara – and I feel, quite honestly, that while my work doesn’t approach their level of greatness, it is at least as good as 1000 to 2000 of the others work included therein.

Color me disappointed. And a little sad.

Ricky Garni

PS If in fact I was included in this issue, please ignore the preceding comments.

Amy

As I wrote on a listserv:

For what’s it worth, kudos to these three young guys. I imagine they’re students, twiddling their thumbs, trying to imagine how to stir up the poetry world, steeped in some sort of theory (situationist? dada-ist? surrealism? etc), facing the menacing world of “getting published” and making something of themselves as poets, ahem. They’ve decided to take on the death of the lyrical I, the death of the author, the death of paper, the celebration of the internet sea, etc. They’ve done something, though just what isn’t clear, but yes, kudos to their efforts to make a mess of the pool of internet muck — it may be only a
ripple in the end, but maybe some of the worthwhile work and sites and ideas will get a chance to rise (not necessarily from the anthology) after their pebble has sunk to disappearance.