Make It the Same: Poetry in the Age of Global Media 9780231548670

Table of contents :
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION
1. POSTCOLONIAL MEDIA
2. THE ART OF SAMIZDAT
3. MAKING WAVES IN WORLD LITERATURE
4. SHIBBOLETH
5. COPY RIGHTS
6. CHINESE ROOMS
RECAPITULATIONS
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX

Citation preview

MAKE IT THE SAME

LITERATURE NOW Matthew Hart, David James, and Rebecca L. Walkowitz, Series Editors Literature Now offers a distinct vision of late-twentieth- and early-twenty-first-century literary culture. Addressing contemporary literature and the ways we understand its meaning, the series includes books that are comparative and transnational in scope as well as those that focus on national and regional literary cultures. Caren Irr, Toward the Geopolitical Novel: U.S. Fiction in the Twenty-First Century Heather Houser, Ecosickness in Contemporary U.S. Fiction: Environment and Affect Mrinalini Chakravorty, In Stereotype: South Asia in the Global Literary Imaginary Héctor Hoyos, Beyond Bolaño: The Global Latin American Novel Rebecca L. Walkowitz, Born Translated: The Contemporary Novel in an Age of World Literature Carol Jacobs, Sebald’s Vision Sarah Phillips Casteel, Calypso Jews: Jewishness in the Caribbean Literary Imagination Jeremy Rosen, Minor Characters Have Their Day: Genre and the Contemporary Literary Marketplace Jesse Matz, Lasting Impressions: The Legacies of Impressionism in Contemporary Culture Ashley T. Shelden, Unmaking Love: The Contemporary Novel and the Impossibility of Union Theodore Martin, Contemporary Drift: Genre, Historicism, and the Problem of the Present Zara Dinnen, The Digital Banal: New Media and American Literature and Culture Gloria Fisk, Orhan Pamuk and the Good of World Literature Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel

Make It the Same P O E T RY I N T H E A G E O F G LO B A L M E D I A

Jacob Edmond

Columbia University Press New York

Columbia University Press Publishers Since 1893 New York Chichester, West Sussex cup.columbia.edu Copyright © 2019 Columbia University Press All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Edmond, Jacob, author. Title: Make it the same : poetry in the age of global media / Jacob Edmond. Description: New York : Columbia University Press, [2019] | Series: Literature now | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018048962 | ISBN 9780231190022 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780231548670 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Poetry, Modern—History and criticism. | Literature and technology. | Copying processes. | Digital media. Classification: LCC PN1083.T42 E36 2019 | DDC 809.1/03—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018048962

Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper. Printed in the United States of America Cover image: detail from Alexander Yulikov, Poems of Osip Mandelstam II (Stikhi Osipa Mandel'shtama II), 1979. Ink and graphite. Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union, D18462.002, Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. Photo by Peter Jacobs. Courtesy of the artist.

For Huia, Kāhu, and Nīkau

CONTENTS

AC K N OW L E D G M E N T S

ix

Introduction: The Copy as Global Master Trope 1 Chapter One Postcolonial Media: Kamau Brathwaite’s Reel Revolution 20 Chapter Two The Art of Samizdat: Dmitri Prigov, Moscow Conceptualism, and the Carbon-Copy Origins of New Media Poetics 62 Chapter Three Making Waves in World Literature: Yang Lian and John Cayley’s Networked Collaboration 91 Chapter Four Shibboleth: The Border Crossings of Caroline Bergvall, Performance Writing, and Iterative Poetics 116

viii CONTENTS

Chapter Five Copy Rights: Conceptual Writing, the Mongrel Coalition, and the Racial Politics of Digital Media 151 Chapter Six Chinese Rooms: The Work of Poetry in an Age of Global Languages, Machine Translation, and Automatic Estrangement 194 Recapitulations: Repetition and Revolution in World Poetry 232 NOTES

241

B I B L IO G R A P H Y

INDEX

325

293

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Make It the Same explores the artful making of texts from other texts. The book itself owes much to the work and assistance of others. I have been profoundly moved by the generous support of many of the artists and writers whose work is discussed in Make It the Same. They have often been willing to grant gratis permission to reproduce their texts and images or in other ways have assisted me with my research. I am exceptionally grateful in this regard to Yuri Albert, Caroline Bergvall, Nadia Bourova (on behalf of the estate of Dmitri Prigov), Kamau Brathwaite, John Cayley, Kenneth Goldsmith, James Kao (on behalf of the art group vivienjames), Lao Touzi 侩柕⫸ (also known as Pi Dan 䙖㖎), Vanessa Place, Lev Rubinstein, Amy Stalling, Jonathan Stalling, Yang Lian 㣲䃱, Yi Sha Ẳ㱁, and Alexander Yulikov. I also wish to thank Stephen Motika, publisher at Nightboat Books, and Ros Carter, senior curator at John Hansard Gallery, for their assistance with permissions and reproductions of Bergvall’s work; and Oxford University Press for permission to reproduce several extracts from Brathwaite’s The Arrivants: A New World Trilogy. I owe a great debt to a number of archives, museums, and libraries and to their wonderful archivists, curators, and librarians. I am deeply grateful to the librarians at the University of Otago Library, including Paula Hasler and the acquisitions and interlibrary loan teams, for helping me obtain the

x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

resources necessary for this project. I am also indebted to the extraordinary resources of the George Padmore Institute in London and to its archivist, Sarah Garrod. My thanks too to Sarah White—wife of the late John La Rose, who established the institute—and to Anne Walmsley, whose papers form the basis of the institute’s Caribbean Artists Movement archive. I could not have completed this project without the resources of the Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union in the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University. I am especially grateful to curators Julia Tulovsky and Jane Sharp, to Yelena Kalinsky for her archival assistance and advice, and to Kiki Michael for her help with sourcing photographic reproductions. I am equally grateful to Bettina Brach at the Centre for Artists’ Publications at the Weserburg Museum of Modern Art in Bremen, Germany, and to Mark Leiderman (Lipovetsky) for their assistance with accessing reproductions of rare books and artworks by Prigov. I also wish to thank Sabine Hänsgen, Gerald Janecek, and Mary Nicholas for providing invaluable advice and resources relating to my work on conceptual writing and art in Russia; and Andrew Stewart and the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London for allowing me to explore the ICA’s archive and so locate the videocassette that provided the impetus for chapter 3 of this book. At a crucial stage in this project I had the chance to be a visiting scholar in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York. My thanks to the department and to Matthew Hart and Michael Golston in particular for hosting me and so affording me the invaluable opportunity to draw on the library resources of Columbia University, New York University, and the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. I am grateful to the Marsden Fund of the Royal Society of New Zealand for its generous financial support for the research and writing of this book. I also received invaluable assistance in the form of writing and research grants from the University of Otago. Henrieke Stahl provided additional funding through her DFG (German Research Foundation) Centre for Advanced Studies project “Russian-Language Lyric in Transition.” Make It the Same could not have been completed without the support, encouragement, and intellectual community provided by the staff, faculty, and graduate students of the University of Otago. Many colleagues in the

xi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Department of English and Linguistics and in other departments have listened to and provided feedback on earlier iterations of work contained in this book. These colleagues include Josie Carter, David Ciccoricco, Nicola Cummins, Simone Drichel, Anne Feryok, Hunter Hatfield, Peter Kuch, Jacqueline Leckie, Simone Marshall, Liam McIlvanney, Thomas McLean, Cecilia Novero, Simon Overall, Chris Prentice, Shef Rogers, Rochelle Simmons, Moyra Sweetnam Evans, Paul Tankard, Paola Voci, Erika Wolf, and Lorraine Wong. I owe a special debt to Lyn Tribble for her unstinting encouragement, support, and intellectual rigor. I also owe thanks to my graduate students, including Lynley Edmeades, Joan Fleming, Millie Lovelock, Cy Mathews, Abid Vali, Brad Watson, and Loveday Why, for their conversations and insights, which have helped inspire and shape the ideas in this book. I am equally obliged to Liz Lammers, Karen McLean, and Kylie Smail for their administrative assistance and support. I am extremely grateful to the great many people from around the world who have in various ways provided me with resources, contacts, opportunities to speak, feedback, advice, encouragement, and inspirational conversations, all of which have in various ways fed into this project. These people include Nick Admussen, Jennifer Ashton, Jessica Berman, Marijeta Bozovic, Stephanie Burt, Christopher Bush, David Damrosch, Brent Hayes Edwards, Christopher Funkhouser, Rachel Galvin, Alex Gil, Lisa Gitelman, Eric Hayot, Heather Inwood, Kelly Baker Josephs, David Kaufmann, Kevin Platt, Jessica Pressman, Katie Price, Brian Reed, Stephanie Sandler, Danny Snelson, Chris Song, Henrieke Stahl, Garrett Stewart, Zona YiPing Tsou 悺⿉⸛, Jing Tsu, Maghiel van Crevel, Barrett Watten, Carol Watts, and Kiene Brillenburg Wurth. I also wish to thank the participants in my “Comparing Copies” seminar at the Institute for World Literature’s 2014 session in Hong Kong. I am particularly grateful for the feedback on earlier drafts of part or all of this book provided by Christopher Chen, Craig Dworkin, Lucas Klein, Haun Saussy, and Orchid Tierney, and by participants in the New Zealand Modernist Studies Consortium, including Erin Carlston, Marian Eide, Michele Leggott, Damian Skinner, and Raymond Spiteri. I owe a special debt to the editors of the Literature Now series: to Matthew Hart for his tireless enthusiasm, encouragement, patience, and feedback during the writing of this book; to Rebecca Walkowitz for providing

xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

crucial suggestions at several critical points in the project’s development; and to David James for his belief in my work. I also wish to thank Monique Briones, Philip Leventhal, Susan Pensak, and the rest of the team at Columbia University Press for their exemplary support and guidance. Alongside the press, I have been greatly assisted by the sharp editorial eyes of Megan Kitching, Lisa Marr, Emma Neale, Michael Simon, and Suzanne Sun ⬓㽌 䐯. I am also grateful to John Hughes for his help with image reproductions and to Fred Leise for his assistance with the index. An earlier version of chapter  3 appeared as “Diffracted Waves and World Literature,” Parallax 20, no. 3 (2014). I am especially grateful to Birgit M. Kaiser and Kathrin Thiele, who edited this special issue. A small portion of the introduction draws on work first published in a chapter entitled “Copy” in A New Vocabulary for Global Modernism, edited by Eric Hayot and Rebecca Walkowitz (Columbia University Press, 2016). My thanks to the editors for the opportunity to test ideas explored in greater depth here. Invitations to contribute essays on Prigov and Bergvall to two journal issues provided me with invaluable opportunities to develop concepts and readings that inform the work presented here. Chapter 2 in part expands on ideas initially explored in “Dmitrij Prigov’s Iterative Poetics,” Russian Literature 76, no. 3 (2014). My thanks to Dennis Ioffe for the invitation to contribute to this special issue. Chapter 4 extends a line of investigation initiated in “ ‘Let’s Do a Gertrude Stein on It’: Caroline Bergvall and Iterative Poetics,” Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry 3, no. 2 (2011). I am grateful to Emily Critchley both for organizing the wonderful CrossGenre Festival (University of Greenwich, London, 2010) at which I first spoke about Bergvall’s work and for inviting me to expand my paper into an essay for this issue. In writing Make It the Same, I have also added to several more personal debts. My deepest thanks to all those friends and members of my family who have offered advice and support. In particular I wish to thank my parents, Murray Edmond and Mary Paul, and parents-in-law, Barbara and Bruce Smaill, for their emotional, intellectual, and practical encouragement. Most of all, my heartfelt thanks go to Esther Smaill for her extraordinary intellectual and emotional support and partnership, and to our three children, Huia, K‫ک‬hu, and Nʚkau, for their inspirational energy. I wouldn’t be the same without you.

xiii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A NOTE ON NAMES, SCRIPTS, AND TRANSLATIONS

In the running text I use the most common English-language spelling of Chinese and Russian names. Where only an author’s English-language publications or translations are referenced, I follow the spelling used in the cited publications. Otherwise, in bibliographic entries and figure captions I follow the pinyin (for Chinese) and Library of Congress (for Russian) transliteration systems. For Chinese I use traditional characters as the default. For quotations and source citations, however, I preserve the traditional or simplified form of the original. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own.

INTRODUCTION The Copy as Global Master Trope

Everywhere the same story: our world is full of copies. The Internet is made of billions of pages and files ceaselessly copied between machines, and many of those pages are themselves copies, the products of cut and paste, hardcopy scanning, or remixing. Mash-ups of other texts, images, videos, and sounds in turn generate the millions of memes and remixes that circulate online every day, producing yet more copies. Repetition is equally evident in the discourse and concrete products of the networked global economy. While science has long relied on the principle of repeatability, the terms iterative and even copying are now buzzwords of business, computing, and design.1 The manufacture of buildings, clothes, cars, computers, and countless other products involves ceaseless acts of copying that will only increase with the growth of 3-D printing and the Internet of things. These diverse copies and copying practices range from Bach concertos to Donald Trump memes, One Direction fan fiction to modular buildings, and game design to experimental physics. They are united by one thing: repetition itself. Repetition has always played a role in culture, from the reiterated words that constitute language to the intricate rhythms of dance, music, and poetry. But never before have these repetitions been so overt and pervasive.2 If copying has become the dominant mode of cultural production, it is equally the condition of its distribution and consumption.

2 INTRODUCTION

Consumption itself becomes production when writers, artists, and social media users alike make their art and their personas through the selection and rearrangement of texts and images copied from elsewhere, whether in a book, a gallery space, an Instagram page, or a Facebook profile. Such repetitions on- and offline also produce the transnational copying of cultural material that we call globalization. Make It the Same addresses this confluence of the form of the cultural work with the form of the global cultural system. The book traces a common turn to repetition and reproduction among diverse poets working in three global languages: Chinese, English, and Russian. Poetry is the literary genre traditionally most associated with repetition as a conscious stylistic element, through such devices as rhythm, rhyme, parallelism, anaphora, and pun. Poets over the last half century—and especially over the past two decades—have expanded their emphasis on repetition. The principle of repetition, for instance, undergirds the widespread use of sampling, performance, translation, writing constraints, digital networks, reiterations across multiple media, and the cut-and-paste compositions of “citational,” “unoriginal,” or “uncreative writing.”3 In the field of contemporary poetry, scholars and poets alike have tended to treat these various kinds of repetition as largely separate phenomena.4 By contrast, Make It the Same shows how these diverse practices share a common iterative poetics. It explores the breadth of this iterative turn by crossing the fault lines of stylistic, cultural, and political commitments in contemporary poetry.5 One task of this book is to reveal the common cultural logic underlying the seemingly contrasting practices of such poets as Anne Carson and Christian Bök, Kamau Brathwaite and Kenneth Goldsmith, Hsia Yü ⢷⬯ and Yang Lian 㣲䃱, and Tusiata Avia and Dmitri Prigov.6 While these poets differ radically in their approaches, themes, and affiliations, they and a great many other contemporary writers wrestle with the cultural condition of repetition. By examining the work of such poets, I show how literature has over the past half century turned to iteration to address new media technologies and global cultural change. Take, for example, the poem “Global” by New Zealand poet Emma Neale. The poem fantasizes that transforming the world might be as easy as making global changes in a document—as finding and replacing all instances

3 INTRODUCTION

of a word: “Search for smart bombs / Replace with crayoned paper folded into lilies, swans / . . . / Search for profits / Replace with prophets / Save as / New World.doc.”7 The poem calls attention to the changes wrought by new technologies and to the power that those changes might hold for those wishing to assert or contest authority on a global scale. Neale’s poem envisages writing as repetition: to make global changes, the writer repeats a text while replacing one word with another over and over again. Sometimes the replacement word even sounds the same. Neale’s poem, however, differs markedly from some of the more radical and strange copy works that I will discuss. In some of these works, the poet does not imaginatively describe such a mechanical writing practice but instead rigorously enacts it. In Boycott, for instance, Vanessa Place reproduces feminist texts with all instances of feminine-gendered words replaced by their masculine counterparts.8 As with the changes in Neale’s poem, the turn to iteration is in several senses global. It includes practices that range from Neale’s imaginative lyricism to cut-and-paste compositions such as Place’s. The turn is evident across a vast range of poetries that are rarely if ever discussed together, and it can be found in diverse literary traditions. For this reason, part of the literary historical work of this book lies in retelling the usual, largely AngloAmerican and Western European account of the rise of copy poetry. That conventional story might include Gertrude Stein’s repetitions, John Cage’s and Jackson Mac Low’s procedural textual processing, Andy Warhol’s use of reproduction and tape recording, Brion Gysin’s and William Burrough’s cut-ups, the generative poetic constraints of Oulipo and Language writing, and the wholesale copying practices of Anglophone conceptual writing.9 This genealogy, however, tells only part of the story of copy poetry’s rise and at times even risks implying that in the history of recent art and literature, “technology was used significantly only in New York” or other similar Anglo-American and Western European cultural centers.10 To this genealogy, therefore, Make It the Same adds alternate lines of development that pass not through New York, Paris, or London but through Kingston, Moscow, and Taipei. The point is not merely to offer a corrective within the existing model, but to show how copy works suggest a fundamentally different way of understanding literature and culture on a global scale.

4 INTRODUCTION

MASTER COPY

When we study the turn to iteration in poetry, we become aware of the repetitions we live by. Institutions from states to hospitals, schools, and prisons operate and endure through rules, norms, and other forms of repetition.11 Iterative poetry can both reveal the forms of repetition that produce institutional norms and offer measures that contest, alter, transform, or replace those existing rhythms of authority. Attention to form in this sense can allow us “to take account of the temporal patterns of art and life as organizing and shaping, . . . but also as plural and colliding, . . . each, thanks to the others, incapable of imposing its own dominant order.”12 Poetry highlights social forms of repetition and copying and offers its own rhythms that sometimes echo and sometimes contest the dominant iterations of our social world.13 Copy poetry might appear to reinforce existing institutions and forms of authority, but it can also undo these conditions of mastery. Copying can emphasize either the sameness of each iteration—its repetition of the master copy—or its difference, as each copy is reframed by a new medium; by a new historical, cultural, or linguistic context; or by the encounter with competing orders of repetition.14 This double function of the copy not only undergirds many influential attempts to conceptualize society and culture at large.15 It has also made copying rather than innovation the main contemporary aesthetic response to authority: whether that authority takes the form of tradition, authoritarianism, or emergent global norms. Take, for example, the authority of the literary work as an institutional form. Though Roland Barthes long ago proposed its replacement with the boundlessness of the “absolutely plural text,” the work remains powerfully persistent within the institution of literary studies and among wider reading publics.16 The work gains its authority from its repeatability. As millions of print and electronic copies of Great Expectations circulate, for instance, they produce and reinforce the authority and integrity of Charles Dickens’s novel as a literary work. Now, however, literature increasingly circulates in multiple versions: online, in print, as an audio or audiovisual file, and as a text. It may equally reappear edited and transformed in different works across various media. These versions reveal that the work was from the outset a fantasy. One can easily cite nineteenth-century literary texts that exist in many versions,

5 INTRODUCTION

perhaps most famously Leaves of Grass, which Walt Whitman ceaselessly revised and reissued in new editions. Dickens’s novel appeared in serialized form before being published as a single book. And Dickens famously revised the ending, producing multiple conclusions to the story. The novel appears in many different editions and formats, with various annotations, all of which change the way the work is read. Its varied readers approach and interpret it in different ways, and it has been translated into many other languages, producing further versions.17 Versioning, then, is by no means new, but new media and globalization have brought widespread emphasis on and awareness of such iterations. Used in this sense, the term versioning itself derives from an artistic practice that emerges out of the new media and decolonizing movements of the 1960s. Deployed in fields such as advertising, finance, and computing since the late 1970s and 1980s, the term was first used to describe a technique developed by Jamaican recording studios in the 1960s.18 Using early multitrack and mixing technology and the impermanent medium of the acetate plate, studio engineers created multiple versions of a song with the same drum and bass backing. These unique versions were prized by DJs seeking an advantage in the competitive sound-system dance scene.19 The DJs also began to play the unaccompanied drum and bass tracks, over which they would “toast,” or rap, live spoken-word performances, thereby producing yet more versions.20 These versioning practices were exported to the United States, where they were adopted and adapted as hip hop and led to the complex musical mixing and sampling that characterizes popular music in our digital era.21 This history shows how new media technologies led to new cultural forms built from iteration. These copy forms then proved particularly amenable to copying and so to worldwide distribution. As Make It the Same demonstrates, an analogous process took place in poetry at the same time and in the same place. In early 1960s Jamaica, Edward (later Kamau) Brathwaite developed a mode of poetic composition and versioning out of his engagement with the new audio technology of the tape recorder. Exported to the United Kingdom, Brathwaite’s recording and performance techniques influenced the young Linton Kwesi Johnson and, in the 1970s and 1980s, contributed to the development of dub poetry and other new forms of Afro-Caribbean performance poetry, helping spark a broader turn to performance in British poetry.22 Brathwaite later

6 INTRODUCTION

adapted these tape-derived versioning techniques to the computer, so attracting attention from US avant-garde poets. The impact of tape was not, of course, limited to the Caribbean. It spurred a similar interest in repetition and difference in Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape, Allen Ginsberg’s “Wichita Vortex Sutra,” Andy Warhol’s A: A Novel, and Eduardo Costa and John Perreault’s Tape Poems, to name but a few examples. Such AngloAmerican and Western European examples predominate in many accounts of the impact of sound recording technologies, including tape, on poetry.23 More than any of these writers, however, Brathwaite explored the versioning possibilities of the new medium. As with the rise of versioning in popular music, these changes were not simply a matter of media technologies shaping cultural production. Rather, versioning illustrates how media are cultural practices that emerge in relation to and shape the uses of technologies.24 The gramophone was supposed to be a business tool but turned out to be the medium of popular music.25 Likewise, the new recording technologies that allowed multitracking and overwriting turned out to be used not to produce a better work but to explode the notion of a work into many versions. Though less durable by far, the acetate discs used by DJs in Jamaica in the mid-1960s  offered a quite different and more prescient use of the new technologies than the multitrack recording sophistication of, for instance, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Or better, dub versioning highlights the iterative practices of remixing that also produced the Beatles’ album but that are obscured by our imagining of it as a single and singular work. The turn to iteration heralds a conceptual shift from the inviolate work, born in one language, nation, and medium, to the multimedia, multiversion, multiauthor text, which often appears “simultaneously . . . in multiple languages.”26 The shift is from an emphasis on copies of a single work to the work of copying, repetition, and translation, in which the consumer becomes a producer.27 The development of musical forms “such as disco and hip hop” out of the adaptation of Jamaican DJ practices, for instance, became the model for the later rise of what has been termed remix culture. Developed as an explicit, albeit loose, “international movement” out of the DIY ethos of late-1990s Internet culture, remix culture has promoted a recognition of the role of “combinatoriality” in all cultural production.28 In this sense, the iterative turn marks the encounter between two different modes and understandings of copying: between the original work whose copies

7 INTRODUCTION

we consume and the work of copying and repetition in which writers and readers alike participate. The shift to versioning also involves a contestation of existing forms of cultural authority. Caribbean musicians and poets alike developed modes of art making that could be distributed not through multinational record labels and presses but through homespun versions on acetate disc and reelto-reel tape. They used repetition and versioning to develop a postcolonial alternative to the cultural institutions and art-making practices of former colonial powers. Even as the combined forces of new media and cultural globalization seemed to increase the influence of the West, musicians and poets used versioning to make these forces sound out a different beat. Poetry’s turn to repetition, in other words, represented not just a shift in rhetorical form but also an ethical and political response to the crisis in authority engendered by new media technologies and globalization. WORLD ITERATURE

Make It the Same not only uncovers fundamental changes in the production and distribution of literary texts; it also argues that these changes necessitate a fresh approach to studying world literature. Copy works draw into question many of the concepts that inform literary history on a global scale, including originality and belatedness, national location, and the boundaries of literature itself, which now blur into theater, installation and performance art, social media, music, video, and so on.29 The turn to iteration in poetry illustrates how reading for a common form across languages and cultures might not so much obscure a text’s cultural particulars as reveal the complex and contested repetitions that constitute that text’s position in local and global history. To read in this way involves identifying and tracking copying practices as they circulate globally and in the context of unequal and contested cultural, economic, and political power and authority. World literature becomes world iterature: a mode of reading contemporary literature through the uses and pressures of the copy. “In today’s divided world, to discover varieties of sameness is to give in too easily to the false promises of a level playing field,” writes Gayatri Spivak.30 Yet to discover only differences is to give up the possibility of thinking relations between things. The copy not only illuminates this problem

8 INTRODUCTION

but also offers a possible methodological solution. Instead of emphasizing either absolute sameness or the utter difference of “untranslatability”—that either “everything is translatable” or “nothing is translatable”—copy literature teaches us to attend to the space “between everything and nothing”: to hear the differences in repetition.31 Copy works highlight the importance of repetition to the two main competing accounts of world literature today. World-systems theory emphasizes the unequal power distribution that drives peripheral literatures to copy the center, whereas circulation theory emphasizes the nonhierarchical movement of copies of texts and literary forms across languages and cultures. The copy is at the heart of the influential account of world literature associated with Franco Moretti and Pascale Casanova, who draw on Immanuel Wallerstein’s world-systems theory to explain modern literary history as the product of a world that is “one, and unequal.”32 As Moretti emphasizes, this model is explicitly focused on accounting for the production of “sameness” through the “diffusion” of cultural forms from the global economic and geopolitical “core” to the “periphery.”33 Moretti’s prescription for “distant reading” is the tracking of copies (through the wavelike propagation of the novel form, for example) across space and time.34 Such accounts emphasize the sameness of the copy as the formal representation of cultural hegemony.35 But even more influential have been studies that stress the changes texts undergo as they move—through copies, translations, and versioning—beyond “their culture of origin.”36 These accounts highlight how texts circulate in “transnational contexts marked by difference.”37 They explore the proliferation of “hybrid” and “translocal poetics” as copies are produced, circulated, and reframed in new contexts.38 Despite stressing difference rather than sameness, this alternative model of cultural “circulations” shares with world-systems theory an attempt to account for and address forms of repetition.39 Make It the Same suggests an even more fundamental role for the copy. Circulation theory’s “focus on travel” has “tended to emphasize the distinction between literature’s beginnings and its afterlives.” 40 Similarly, world-systems theory has emphasized the originating power of the center and the copying practices of the periphery. Unlike world-systems theory, Make It the Same identifies a two-way process of repetition produced by a shared “mimetic desire”: the center copies the periphery as much as the periphery emulates the center.41 And unlike circulation theory, Make It the

9 INTRODUCTION

Same approaches copying not simply as a sign of relation between distinctive local literatures but as an engagement with and contestation of the authority of cultural centers and of claims to originality. In these respects, Make It the Same builds on and adapts the more nuanced and dynamic accounts of repetition as a driver of literary change found in polysystem theory and in the Russian formalist theory from which it derives. Like the iterative approach that I adopt, both these theories are concerned not with origins but with the shifting effects of repetition—with what happens when literary devices and practices are copied, adapted, or translated to new contexts. Repetition is both what produces the norms of a given literary system and what eventually drives change as those norms become calcified through their ceaseless reiteration, or what Itamar EvenZohar, following Viktor Shklovsky, terms the “automatization of the canonized.” 42 This automatization in turn prompts the rise of alternative literary practices, which are copied from elsewhere within the system. Thus, like biological evolution, what Yury Tynyanov termed “literary evolution” is a system of repetition that produces continuous change. In “literary evolution,” Tynyanov writes, the literary norms of one generation are estranged (redeployed to fulfill a new “function”) by the next generation. The new norms then become the orthodoxy to be overthrown, as the function of elements in the “literary system” is again rearranged.43 Although Moretti’s account of the literary world system partly derives from it, polysystem theory offers a more dynamic way of understanding literary change and unequal power relations on a global scale. For instance, it explores how a form of literary practice may be “transferred from the periphery of one system to the periphery of an adjacent system” and then move “on to the center” of another.44 Similarly, Make It the Same proposes an approach to world literature that privileges neither origins and centers, as in world-systems theory, nor diversity and heterogeneity, as in circulation or relational theories of world literature. It treats dissemination and circulation neither as merely a system of domination imposed on the periphery by the center nor simply as evidence of the power of hybrid or translocal literatures to resist this domination. At the same time, it synthesizes and extends elements of world-systems and circulation theories of world literature in that both these competing theories acknowledge the role of copying in literary change.

10 INTRODUCTION

Make It the Same, then, is not only an account of some of the most significant trends and figures in contemporary poetry; it is also an attempt to develop a new way of studying global literature and culture. Whereas most accounts of world literature and global modernism still privilege the modernist emphasis on making it new—the moments of innovation that emerge against a background of repetition—this book seeks to show that literary change in our age of globalization and digital media is best understood through the master trope of the copy. FROM “MAKE IT NEW” TO “MAKE IT THE SAME”

Modernism is often told as a story of novelty, strangeness, and singular genius summed up in Ezra Pound’s injunction to “make it new.” Yet “make it the same” might equally serve as the catchphrase of modernism. Modernism emerged out of a vast increase in copying, to which it responded through repetition, appropriation, and remixing. Examples range from Sergei Eisenstein’s montage, Marcel Duchamp’s ready-mades, Stein’s repetitions as insistences, Pablo Picasso’s and Georges Braque’s collage, James Joyce’s pastiche, and Herman Melville’s Bartleby to Jorge Luis Borges’s Pierre Menard, the translations and versioning of Xu Zhimo ⼸⽿㐑, Mahatma Gandhi’s printing press, and Sergei Tretyakov’s newspaper as twentieth-century epic.45 Even the slogan status of Pound’s phrase “make it new” is the product of later critical appropriations, and the phrase itself is a translation, a copy of a centuries-old text that was probably mistranscribed from a far more ancient source.46 The copy’s centrality to modernism is increasingly legible in the early twenty-first century, when reproduction triumphs over production in the billions of everyday acts through which we produce and consume links and likes on Facebook, Twitter, WeChat, and other social media. Twenty-firstcentury copy practices echo, build on, and underscore the rise of the copy in modernism. If copying already plays a key role in modernism, contemporary literature accentuates this aspect of modernist practice. Modernism has often been seen as a site of resistance to the emergence of the copy as a cultural dominant. The emphasis in Anglo-American modernism on making it new has been influentially read as deriving from the need “to produce something which resists and breaks through the force of gravity of repetition as a universal feature of commodity

11 INTRODUCTION

equivalence.” 47 Yet the relation of modernism to the copy is better conceived as a dialectical embrace. Technologies of reproduction and techniques of innovation frequently impel each other. Photography, for example, prompted painters to leave off trying to copy the appearances of things. By attending to works that radically foreground copying and repetition and by recognizing similarly repetitive structures even in works that seek to resist sameness through strangeness, we can complicate the opposition between, on the one hand, mass reproduction, consumer capitalism, and globalization and, on the other, modern and contemporary literature and art. The copy thereby provides a way to negotiate the ongoing rift between readings of modernist and contemporary literature that emphasize sociological, technological, political, and economic context and those that stress particularity and singular genius. The art of repetition also suggests a way to question the temporal and spatial hierarchies of global literary histories. These hierarchies emerge from what Rey Chow has termed a “mimetic desire, responsive and oriented toward the West’s imposition of itself on the Rest.” 48 Understood in these terms, to study non-Western, peripheral, or global modernism is to uncover non-Western writers’ imitation of Western literature in order to make their work legible to the West, “to speak in the other’s language in order to be recognized by the other.” Within the “make it new” rhetoric of modernism, mimetic desire “imposes a historical lag between the other’s behavior and one’s own. To be caught up in mimetic desire requires one invariably to be ‘behind the times.’ ” 49 The copy, by contrast, does not “privilege being temporally ‘first.’ ”50 Hence the “strategy of re-writing” not only attempts, as in some avant-garde practice, “to short-circuit or interrupt the text’s own representational construction”; it also undoes the structure of mimetic desire that shapes the way we think of modernism transnationally.51 Just as the “anti-theatrical” theater of Brecht and other modernists was a means of “keeping under control and mediating the theatrical mimesis,” so copy works denaturalize the framework of originality, innovation, and mimetic desire in approaches to global literature.52 Seen in this light, copying and mimetic desire are not signs of non-Western derivativeness but qualities shared equally by non-Western and Western modernism. Modernism and contemporary literature in turn constitute not separate periods but overlapping practices, whose relationship is defined by repetition.

12 INTRODUCTION

To think about modernist and contemporary literature through the copy is to draw together two still arguably “separate and non-communicative” approaches to global literature: on the one hand, a focus on new technologies of reproduction and communication; on the other, transnationalism.53 Read in this vein, for example, Joyce’s Ulysses adopts the newspaper’s collage effect and global reach not just in the “Aeolus” episode but also where an advertisement in a newspaper used for butcher’s wrapping shifts Leopold Bloom’s thoughts suddenly to Zionist settlements in Palestine. Similarly, in the “Oxen of the Sun” episode, Joyce connects cross-cultural appropriation to debates over copyright and the public domain fueled by new media technologies. Having reiterated historical English texts, Joyce concludes the episode with a new modernist dialect, which he founds on racial mimicry.54 He uses copying in the episode both to register the global expansion of English and to assert the value of the public domain in response to the expansion of international copyright.55 But to focus on the copy is equally to recognize the problem with such global perspectives, which reduce individual texts to examples of larger phenomena through “the magic of mimesis wherein the replication, the copy, acquires the power of the represented.”56 Charles Altieri criticizes the new modernist studies for seeing copies everywhere, for adopting an “analogical model” that “stresses only similarities.” Altieri invites us to consider “the difference between showing how Henry James’s work shares some characteristics with the telegraph, and showing how James thought about working out ways to have his style take on telegraphic properties,” as the difference between analogy and “a dialectical account of how those purposive actions worked through specific and general problems.”57 In seeking to emphasize larger historical, technological, and geopolitical forces and contexts such as those I have invoked here, scholars of global literature risk underplaying the poetics and materiality of literary texts and their active engagements with and responses to new technologies, media, and globalization. Yet analogical thinking—what Walter Benjamin called the “historical hallucination of sameness”—is a central theme of modernity, fed by the rise of the commodity economy and by new technologies, from the telegraph to the Internet, that enabled copies to be propagated rapidly around the world.58 Addressing the poetics of the copy provides a way to bridge the divide between text and context by calling attention to the iterative devices through which modernist and contemporary artists and writers

13 INTRODUCTION

respond to and reconfigure the larger rise of copy culture in modernity, including the intertwining of the copy with imaginings of the global. Modernism’s use of the copy was adapted and extended by those writing later in the twentieth century. The Russian theorist Boris Groys, for instance, introduced the term conceptualism to the Soviet samizdat literary world via Borges’s fictional copyist hero Menard, who reproduces Don Quixote “word for word” but whose copying of Cervantes produces a text “almost infinitely richer” than the original.59 Borges’s story highlights how even an exact copy differs over time and between contexts and media: the narrator perceives the “traces” of the “handwriting of our friend,” Menard, within the “final,” printed Don Quixote.60 Just a few years before Borges wrote his story, Mikhail Bakhtin had named this process of continuous change “re-accentuation” and made it central to his account of discourse in the novel.61 Some decades later, Groys’s act of copying and recombination—remixing Borges and conceptual art—continued this process of reaccentuation and in turn inspired further acts of copying, versioning, and remediation, such as poet and artist Dmitri Prigov’s many repetitions and versionings of Alexander Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin. Prigov reframes Menard’s strategy as a way to comment on Russian nationalism, romanticism, and Soviet culture, a framing that also allows him to present Russian conceptualism as more conceptual than Western conceptualism.62 Such acts of explicit copying reflect on the processes of repetition that characterize canonization and cross-cultural appropriation. Menard returns as the prototype for the rise of conceptual writing in the English-speaking world (especially in Canada and the United States) in the 2000s.63 These conceptualists make Menard’s poetics of repetition central to a retrospectively generated canon of modernist conceptual writing that includes such works as W. B. Yeats’s “Mona Lisa,” a transcription of a passage from Walter H. Pater’s Studies in the History of the Renaissance lineated into free verse by Yeats and used to open the Oxford Book of Modern Verse: 1892–1935.64 Such uses of Menard affirm how Borges’s “text already inscribes within itself, intimately and unavoidably, the analytic and epistemic protocols for its discursive and narrative permutation into the theoretical complexity of the critical field called world literature.” 65 Whereas Djelal Kadir here offers Borges’s story as an antidote to fungible world literature, however, Menard and his travels indicate a more complex playing

14 INTRODUCTION

with fungibility and the uniqueness of each instantiation of even the same text. Contemporary copy poetry extends Menard’s and modernism’s copy practices to respond to the new scale of repetition wrought by new media and globalization. This copy poetry again poses the problem of reading literature as a response to these forces while recognizing the particularity of each iteration. Even the most exact repetition contains differences. These differences undo the artificial separation of a repeated text or object from its context or medium of iteration, highlighting the contingent nature of language and culture, text and media, which are not clearly defined objects but intertwined “social experiences of meaning,” “nodes of articulation along a signifying chain.” 66 To address global literature through the copy means confronting the frequent misconstrual of the relationship between content, form, and medium in the way we imagine globalization and digital media. Just as globalization is often conceived as the reproduction of the same culture throughout the world, so digital media promote the illusion that the same data or text can be endlessly reproduced without change. This “ideology of disembodiment,” “transcendental data,” and translatability dominates today’s digital imaginary, even though data are never separable from their interpretation, words shift their meaning with each reproduction, and no text passes through translation unchanged.67 While new media spawn many fantasies, they nevertheless drive fundamental changes in how literature is made and imagined. Tape recording and typescript reproduction emphasize the multiple possible versions or iterations of a single text to the point that, in Brathwaite’s postcolonial poetics or in the conceptual art and literature of samizdat, copying becomes central to literary production. This technologically driven focus on reproduction represents a shift in poetic practice from the production of new texts to the remixing and reiteration of existing ones. Already present in the citational strategies of modernism, the practice becomes intensified by the new analogue read-write technologies of tape and typescript reproduction and so anticipates the proliferation of versions and copies that is the condition of production and consumption in our digital age. By enabling the proliferation of versions, new media technologies have affected the function of copying in literary history. Copying has always been a catalyst of literary evolution, seen, for example, in the copying of the sonnet or novel form across various languages, historical periods, and geographical regions. But

15 INTRODUCTION

the rise of new media and intensified globalization have in recent decades led copying to overwhelm innovation as the main driver of literary change. REPEATING REVOLUTIONS

Each chapter in Make It the Same traces a step in this turn to repetition. The first half of the book shows how iterative poetics emerged with the proliferating read-write media of the 1950s and 1960s, such as tape and photocopying, and with the flux in authority precipitated by the crumbling of European empires in the immediate postcolonial and late Soviet eras. These copying practices developed to contest various authoritarian regimes and ideologies: British colonialism, Soviet totalitarianism, and Chinese nationalist authoritarian capitalism. The second half of the book shows how these copy practices, pioneered in the 1960s and through the 1980s, flowered in the era of post–Cold War globalization and the World Wide Web. It investigates how these copy strategies and their role in emphasizing and contesting authority became generalized and adapted to Anglo-American literature in the context of global network capitalism and the pervasive digital surveillance now employed by increasingly authoritarian states. This history of development through the 1990s and 2000s culminates with an investigation of recent work that engages the global influence of Chinese and English and the authority of the two associated superpowers of our present moment. The book traces the evolution of iterative poetics from a liberating phase to the more troubling—even dystopic—uses of copying in poetry today. The iterative turn began when poets used new media technologies to interrogate colonial mind-sets and totalitarian ideology. Today critics are more likely to present copying—especially in the context of Anglophone conceptual writing—as enacting or reinforcing the entrapping conditions of postindustrial capitalism.68 In exploring this shift in attitudes, Make It the Same highlights the ongoing liberating possibilities of repetition. It shows how those aesthetic practices that might look like a negative endgame for art in an age of endless digital copies actually have a more complicated history and future. Chapter 1 pinpoints one impetus for the iterative turn in the confluence of the postcolonial moment with the rise of electronic media, including

16 INTRODUCTION

radio, tape recording, photocopying, and personal computing. It demonstrates how the iterative turn emerges out of this confluence through the example of Brathwaite, whose career spans the period from the late 1940s to the Internet age. Brathwaite is widely recognized as one of the most significant Caribbean writers of the postcolonial era, and his computer-based graphic experiments from later in his career are well known. This chapter, however, draws on overlooked rare, archival, and nonprint sources to demonstrate the critical but virtually unnoticed role that the new media of the 1950s and 1960s—especially the tape recorder and the photocopier—played in Brathwaite’s poetic innovations and in his contributions to postcolonial theory, Caribbean culture, and world literature. Jamaican sound engineers transformed popular music through the remix. Brathwaite had a similar impact on contemporary literature. His remixing and versioning practices fused audio recording technologies, the photocopier, and the computer with the search for a way out of the prison of global English. These practices laid the groundwork for the later worldwide rise of repetition, remixing, and remediation in poetry as a response to digital technology and the post–Cold War wave of globalization. Chapter 2 traces another genealogy for the iterative turn through Soviet samizdat. Samizdat writers deployed the typewriter and carbon-copy paper to circumvent state control of publishing outlets and print reproduction technologies. But they also deployed a new kind of cultural logic—what I term the samizdat principle—that led to a qualitatively different approach to literature and art. As with Brathwaite’s postcolonial use of new media, this samizdat principle merged artistic production and reproduction, writing and reading. It furnished Russian conceptual artists and poets like Prigov, Lev Rubinstein, Aleksander Yulikov, and Yuri Albert with the means to stress improvisation and individuality within systematic acts of copying. These artists and writers used samizdat to respond to Western art and to official and unofficial late Soviet culture. They also anticipated the turn to copying that accompanied the upheaval in media and political authority after the end of the Cold War. These postcolonial and samizdat histories illustrate how distinctive forms of copy poetry arose out of local and global crises in media and political authority in mid- to late twentieth-century culture. By beginning with the rise of repetition and copying in 1960s Caribbean and 1970s Soviet art and literature, Make It the Same demonstrates that, far from being only a

17 INTRODUCTION

Western European and North American phenomenon that has subsequently been disseminated globally, the turn to repetition has multiple histories. To ignore or downplay these histories is to misunderstand fundamentally the global context and significance of iterative poetics. Chapter 3 argues that these histories require a rethinking of the wave and network metaphors through which world-systems and circulation theorists conceptualize world literature. It explores the complication of these metaphors in the collaboration between Yang Lian and John Cayley, whose poetic practices gave impetus to the iterative turn of Chinese and Anglophone writing. The collaboration interwove traditional and modern Chinese poetry, Anglophone modernist poetry, and early experiments in digital poetics. A product of the dramatic rise of computing technologies and the Internet in the 1990s and of changes in China’s relationship to the rest of the world, the collaboration illustrates the interplay between media technology and questions of political and cultural authority in iterative practice. Chapter 4 explores a practice that developed in dialogue with Cayley’s work and that helped to bring iteration to the center of Anglo-American poetry: performance writing. As director of performance writing at Dartington College of Arts from 1995 to 2001, Caroline Bergvall shaped a mode of writing that came to prominence in England and soon contributed to poetry’s embrace of appropriation, performance, and remediation there and elsewhere in and beyond the Anglophone world. To tell Bergvall’s story is to understand how the iterative turn in English-language poetry grew out of a complex mix of problems, including Thatcherite reforms of higher education, the tension between individual creativity and the network economy, the attempt to negotiate between the bodily and discursive essentialisms of avant-garde poetics, and the economic and cultural inequities of the contemporary world. It is also to recognize the mechanisms of linguistic and cultural exclusion—the shibboleths—that obscure the story of how the turn to repetition in British and North American poetics came partly from other places: from feminist theory, from the blend of new media and cross-cultural poetics reflected in Yang and Cayley’s collaboration, and from Brathwaite’s poetics of postcolonial media. Emerging in the wake of performance writing, Anglophone conceptual writing made large-scale textual copying its defining gesture. Chapter 5 explores the defining public moment in the careers of its most controversial

18 INTRODUCTION

exponents, Kenneth Goldsmith and Vanessa Place. It examines the 2015 controversies surrounding Goldsmith’s use of the autopsy report of AfricanAmerican teenager Michael Brown (shot dead by police in Ferguson, Missouri, on August 9, 2014) as a poetic text and Place’s retweeting of Gone with the Wind under a caricature of an African-American woman reproduced from a blackface minstrelsy sheet music illustration. The attacks on Goldsmith and Place were led by the Mongrel Coalition Against Gringpo, an anonymous, online political art group that also deployed various forms of copy poetics. Rather than taking the part of either side, the chapter examines the debate and the poetry of all three protagonists for what they reveal about the pervasiveness and contested meaning of the copy in contemporary culture. Through acts of wholesale appropriation and by enabling the free download and circulation of avant-garde text, audio, and video files through his website UbuWeb, Goldsmith illustrates how the utopian dream of complete freedom of information and unlimited self-invention helps drive a network economy in which each act of copying becomes a unit of content and attention to be monetized, as on a Facebook page. Questioning such Internet utopianism, Place presents her acts of copying as allegorizing the oppressive features of contemporary copy culture, including the pernicious stereotypes of racist discourse. In attacking the two poets, the Mongrel Coalition fuses elements of Goldsmith’s utopianism with Place’s dystopianism, so illuminating how the device of iteration can equally—and even simultaneously—figure inescapable repetition and revolutionary change. Having traced the rise of iterative poetry from a method of liberation in Brathwaite’s postcolonial work to a self-conscious performance of systematic entrapment in Place’s conceptual writing, I consider in the final chapter how a variety of twenty-first-century poets engage with these contrary meanings of repetition. The chapter addresses the intertwinement of global English and global Chinese, machine translation, Orientalism and Occidentalism, and anxieties around linguistic authority, knowledge, and machine intelligence that all coalesce in the iterative turn. Beginning with US poet Joan Retallack’s response to John Searle’s famous Chinese room thought experiment, the chapter demonstrates how the rise of copying and remediation in contemporary poetry has, like Searle, conflated computer processing, foreignness, and translation. I cite a number of examples from mainland Chinese, Taiwanese, and US poetry, including work by Brandon

19 INTRODUCTION

Som, the Garbage School (Laji pai ✫⛦㳦) of poetry, Yi Sha Ẳ㱁, Jonathan Stalling, Hsia Yü, and Tan Lin. The imagining of computer processing and digital networks via another language extends a centuries-old tradition of associating new inscription, information, and communication technologies with foreignness. But even as they continue a tradition, the poets whom I discuss also mark a change from earlier avant-garde practices—a shift from the mot juste and radical particulars of an earlier modernism to the iterative poetics of textual processing, networking, and translation. Just as languages like Chinese and English derive their global currency from their accessibility, these writers value not the singularity of the word but linkages and exchange. Their diverse poetic works—from autobiographical lyrics to machine translations—share a common iterative form. They respond to the unsettling repetitions of media technologies and globalization by sounding out new global measures for world literature.

Chapter One

POSTCOLONIAL MEDIA Kamau Brathwaite’s Reel Revolution

The landmark first issue of Savacou: A Journal of the Caribbean Artists Movement opens with a Xerox advertisement “for fast Economical Copying/ Duplicating” (figure 1.1). We might consider the advertisement irrelevant to Caribbean culture, and yet the ethics of duplication and borrowing are integral to the journal’s postcolonial project. In his contribution to the issue, founding coeditor Kamau Brathwaite approvingly cites James Grainger’s eighteenth-century view of the West Indies: “Whatever hand copied its appearances . . . could not fail to enrich poetry.”1 Brathwaite goes on to criticize Grainger for failing to heed his own advice in depicting the “bacchanalian frenzy” of a slave dance: “Here, in this passage, we come face to face again with the tyranny of the model. There can be no doubt that Grainger actually saw slaves dance. The wheeling circle is there, the dancers in the centre; . . . But ‘frisk and caper’? The dancers are moving to the wrong rhythm.”2 Brathwaite’s historical anecdote and the Xerox advertisement might at first glance appear to be connected by little more than their common appearance in the inaugural 1970 issue of Savacou. Yet Grainger’s failed act of copying—his “wrong rhythm”—also suggests the need to faithfully record the culture of the Caribbean and so the intertwinement of reproduction media and postcolonial thought through the poetics of repetition.

21 POSTCOLONIAL MEDIA

FIGURE 1.1. An advertisement for Xerox from Savacou: A Journal of the Caribbean Artists Movement 1, no. 1 (1970): 2.

Brathwaite reprises Grainger’s reference to “bacchanalling” in his poem “Calypso.”3 By alluding to Grainger, Brathwaite underscores his claim that “Calypso” is the first poem to successfully capture the rhythms of the Caribbean. Brathwaite makes this claim in his book-length essay History of the Voice, in which he rejects colonial forms of English literature in favor of what he terms “nation language,” which “intimately approaches our own experience” and is “influenced very strongly by the African model.” Hence Brathwaite’s oft-quoted definition: “Nation language . . . is the submerged area of that dialect which is much more closely allied to the African aspect of experience.” 4 This language derives from “an oral tradition. The poetry, the culture itself, exists not in a dictionary but in the tradition of the spoken word.”5 Many have contrasted Brathwaite’s stress on the immediacy of oral traditions in History of the Voice with his turn, in the late 1980s and 1990s, to word-processing software to engineer more graphically varied poems, often by reworking older poems in what he termed his “Sycorax video-style.”6

22 POSTCOLONIAL MEDIA

Though the term fuses new media with a postcolonial reading of The Tempest, Brathwaite’s turn to a computer-generated video-style has been seen as breaking with his earlier postcolonial commitments in two ways. One view is that Brathwaite’s video-style betrays his postcolonial poetics of Caribbean “nation language.”7 The other is that it overcomes his earlier insistence on a typically romantic dichotomy that separates “the intimate vocal utterance from distancing technologies associated with prosthetic forms of rememoration.”8 Even those who recognize continuities between Brathwaite’s earlier and later work tend to treat his engagements with media technology as a feature of the latter part of his career.9 These bipartite accounts of his practice have led scholars on all sides of the debate to almost completely neglect how, from the very beginning of his career, Brathwaite made media technology central to his poetic and postcolonial project. As this chapter demonstrates, Brathwaite’s conception of voice and orality has from the outset been inseparable from his interest in new media technologies and in the poetics of remediation.10 His practice as a poet, historian, editor, and theorist reveals the more than coincidental relationship between postcolonial thought and such media as the phonograph, radio, tape recorder, photocopier, and computer. The iterative problematic of mimicry, creolization, hybridity, echo, or repetition is a commonplace of postcolonial and cultural theory.11 What goes unrecognized is that the concrete historical and material reality that gives rise to the abstract model of iteration is not just that of colonial history and the moment of European decolonization but also the media revolution that coincides with these historical changes. Like earlier waves of anticolonial struggle, the rise of independence movements and the collapse of European empires in the mid-twentieth century were intimately connected to the use of media and communication networks.12 In the Anglophone Caribbean, as elsewhere, the effort to achieve cultural independence alongside political independence involved the development of local culturally legitimizing media institutions, from publishing houses to radio stations.13 These postcolonial media institutions drew on the “extemporization and ad hockery” that had characterized “colonial-born” presses.14 Improvised forms of reproduction became increasingly common during the midcentury period of decolonization through the proliferation of cheaper, more accessible read-write technologies of printing, such as mimeography and xerography, and of audio

23 POSTCOLONIAL MEDIA

recording, such as the tape recorder. Unlike, for example, television, which required extensive infrastructure, read-write technologies such as magnetic tape helped enable new “grassroots-based micro-media,” which provided “dominated social groups with an unprecedented degree of access to, representation in, and control of mass media.”15 In some postcolonial countries, cassette tapes also enabled the emergence of local companies to rival the multinationals that had previously dominated the recording industry.16 As the Savacou advertisement for Xerox suggests, these postcolonial uses of media had a simultaneously antagonistic and symbiotic relationship with colonial and neocolonial media and media technology corporations from the BBC to Philips, Xerox, and Apple Inc. Writers like Brathwaite embraced the read-write technologies of the Philips tape recorder, the Xerox copier, and the Apple Macintosh computer. They used these new media to develop a new postcolonial way of thinking and writing. Writers used these new read-write technologies to challenge existing forms of cultural authority, providing a key impetus for the further rise of copy culture in the twenty-first century. In the 1950s and 1960s, radio and tape inspired and inflected Brathwaite’s postcolonial poetics in ways that were initially intertwined. His early accounts of radio broadcasts, for instance, dwell on field recordings made possible by the newly invented transistor tape recorder. Despite this entanglement, however, radio and tape have distinctive cultural meanings in his work, and these differences in turn illuminate the trajectory of both Brathwaite’s own poetic career and the iterative turn. Whereas, like Frantz Fanon in the same period, Brathwaite appealed to radio as a source of transnational pan-African and anticolonial solidarity, he found in tape a model for a more complex cultural imaginary involving the continuous remixing and revising of diverse cultural materials. His use of tape illustrates how sound reproduction could itself become a “distinctive way of relating to, understanding, and experiencing death, history, and culture.” According to Jonathan Sterne, in the early twentieth century “permanence in sound recording” became part of a profoundly racist “cultural and political program” in which the sounds of colonized cultures were captured, stored, and confined to a supposedly dying past.17 In Brathwaite’s hands, however, sound recordings— including historical recordings of supposedly dying oral traditions— became a way to reconceptualize black history and culture on both sides of the Atlantic not as a fixed past but as a continuous series of remixes.

24 POSTCOLONIAL MEDIA

Brathwaite’s approach anticipates later characterizations of the culture of the “black Atlantic” and “black internationalism” through the repetitions and variations of black music.18 But it also reveals the importance of media, as well as music, to the iterative structure of such conceptions of black, postcolonial, and global culture. As Brathwaite’s trajectory of experimentation illustrates, postcolonial uses of predigital media technologies such as magnetic tape anticipated later cultural practices of copying, including the remix, mash-up, and cut-and-paste poetics of the digital era. Such postcolonial media practices thus exemplify how our uses of digital media grow out of longer histories of culturally inflected media practices involving a variety of predigital media technologies.19 Building on his tape-based versioning practice, for example, Brathwaite later came to explore the homemade print reproductions and versions made possible by xerography. His similar use of these two quite different media reflected and contributed to an increasing sense of the fluidity of the text in the 1960s and 1970s and anticipated his own later use of the versioning possibilities of the personal computer. Describing the opening lines of his poem “Calypso,” Brathwaite has said that “on the page . . . it is almost the hint of the dreaded pentameter.”20 When he cites the same lines in History of the Voice, Brathwaite appeals to the “voice”—to its “shape of intonation”—to emphasize how, when read aloud, the poem’s calypso rhythm works “to break down the pentameter.”21 This moment in History of the Voice highlights the fact that it is not—or not only—a book or essay but, in the words of the subtitle that Brathwaite appended to at least two versions of the piece, “an electronic lecture.”22 History of the Voice started life as a talk that interspersed Brathwaite’s live voice with the electronically recorded voices and music of others. Brathwaite’s claim to have succeeded in recording the rhythms of the Caribbean in his poem “Calypso” relies on audio reproduction technology, specifically the tape recorder, which not only allowed his talk to be recorded, transcribed, and published but also preserves the rhythm of his utterance.23 Similarly, Brathwaite’s larger argument that “if you ignore the noise . . . then you lose part of the meaning” leads him to explain in History of the Voice, “I have to have a tape recorder for this presentation.”24 Brathwaite’s talk was originally built around a mixtape compiled from recordings that appear in the published version’s extensive discography. His appeal in print to the sound of tape routes his conception of authenticity, orality, and postcolonial

25 POSTCOLONIAL MEDIA

nation language through multiple forms of mediation—from tape recording to talk to transcription, editing, and publication. He thus calls the reader’s attention (as in his reference elsewhere in the essay to the “software” of language) to the medium of presentation, even as he plays between media and versions.25 In an early version of his poem “Calypso,” by contrast, Brathwaite associates print reproduction technologies not with postcolonial liberation but with hypocrisy, as in the “carbon-copy smiles” experienced by a colonial in London.26 Extending this critique of copying as a form of colonial oppression, Brathwaite’s criticism of Grainger for succumbing to “the tyranny of the model” forms part of a larger argument against the inauthentic copying of cultural “mimic men.”27 Brathwaite’s contemporary target here is V. S. Naipaul and his 1967 novel The Mimic Men, not for the novel’s acerbic analysis of middle-class mimicry of European culture (with which Brathwaite largely agrees), but for Naipaul’s pessimism—for his claim in The Middle Passage (1962) that “nothing was created in the West Indies.”28 Brathwaite seeks to counter this claim with a historical and contemporary account of the resources of creolization and of folk and popular Caribbean culture. Some two decades later, Homi Bhabha also sought to counteract the “conservative melancholy” of Naipaul’s Mimic Men. Reading the novel “against the author’s intention and ideology,” Bhabha developed an account of postcolonial culture’s creative iterations: “hybrid forms of life and art that do not have a prior existence within the discrete world of any single culture or language.”29 Bhabha’s iterative theory of cultural hybridity was highly influential in postcolonial studies. Brathwaite, however, shows us that such iterative theories have a much longer history and derive not from the writings of Judith Butler or Jacques Derrida but from the intertwinement of decolonization with the rise of new electronic media.30 Though often treated separately, media and postcolonial history are in fact fundamentally intertwined. To see this linkage is to begin to understand the cultural origins and significance of the iterative turn. Out of the problem of mimicry that Naipaul poses, Brathwaite derives a postcolonial, iterative theory of culture as creolization, as “a basis for creative reconstruction” in the Caribbean: “What the white Jamaican élite did not, could not, would not, dare accept, was that true autonomy for them could only mean true autonomy for all; that the more unrestricted the creolization, the greater would have been the freedom.”31 For Brathwaite, this freedom of cultural

26 POSTCOLONIAL MEDIA

mixing went hand in hand with the mixtape; and through the poetics of repetition, the postcolonial revolution fused with a revolution in media. MICROPHONE TRAVELING

Before he attracted notice as a poet, Brathwaite achieved notoriety as a DJ. In the late 1940s, while still at high school, he presented a program on the Barbadian radio station Rediffusion. The program showcased the new genre of bebop jazz and was soon canceled due to the shocked response of listeners.32 Around this time, Brathwaite also edited a column devoted to written responses to jazz recordings for a high school magazine. For both radio program and magazine column, Brathwaite depended on his collection of phonograph discs, the dominant medium of sound recording at the time and an increasingly important medium for poetry. In addition to listening to jazz, Brathwaite also visited the British Council in Barbados to hear recordings of poetry. Brathwaite recalls in particular the formative impact of listening to T. S. Eliot’s “actual voice—or rather his recorded voice.”33 Eliot himself wrote of recording his poetry in ways that anticipate Brathwaite’s stress on the power of audio recording to capture the rhythms lost in written language: What the recording of a poem by its author can and should preserve, is the way that poem sounded to the author when he had finished it. The disposition of lines on the page, and the punctuation (which includes the absence of punctuation marks, when they are omitted where the reader would expect them) can never give an exact notation of the author’s metric. The chief value of the author’s record, then, is as a guide to the rhythms.34

In History of the Voice Brathwaite cites this passage from Eliot’s “Author’s Note” to the 1947 British Council 78 rpm recording of Four Quartets.35 Published just prior to Eliot’s 1948 Nobel Prize award and distributed throughout the British Empire, the records helped to affirm Eliot’s preeminence in midcentury Anglophone literature and propel the rise of audio recording as a medium for poetry.36 Echoing Eliot’s stress on “the rhythms,” Brathwaite emphasizes how the audio recording revealed “in that dry deadpan delivery, the riddims of St. Louis (though we didn’t know the source then),” which were “stark and

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clear for those of us who at the same time were listening to the dislocations of Bird, Dizzy and Klook.”37 Brathwaite celebrates Eliot not for his individual talent (for the individual “author’s metric”) but for his repetitions—for his vocal embodiment of the generic rhythms of African-American speech and music. He connects Eliot to the speech and music of the African diaspora by translating Eliot’s “rhythms” into “riddims.” The term triangulates bebop jazz and Eliot’s poetry through Jamaican dub. Brathwaite not only translates the word rhythm into Caribbean speech but also refers to the riddim’s “distinctive meaning in Jamaican music,” where it refers to the “generic . . . bass lines” that provide “the basic ingredient of a dub version.”38 In finding “riddims” in Eliot’s “rhythms,” Brathwaite reveals a submerged connection between modern poetry, jazz, and Jamaican dub versioning. This connection surfaces only through the repetitions and juxtapositions enabled by audio recording technologies. Brathwaite not only listened to Eliot but, as a teenager, memorized The Waste Land and so sought to give voice to his own version of the rhythms that he found in Eliot’s poetry.39 The remainder of Eliot’s liner note, not cited by Brathwaite, suggests the emphasis on versioning that would become critical to Brathwaite’s practice: A recording of a poem read by its author is no more definitive an “interpretation” than a recording of a symphony conducted by the composer. The poem, if it is of any depth and complexity, will have meanings in it concealed from the author; and should be capable of being read in many ways, and with a variety of emotional emphases. A good poem, indeed, is one which even the most accomplished reading cannot exhaust. . . . Another reader, reciting the poem, need not feel bound to reproduce these rhythms; but, if he has studied the author’s version, he can assure himself that he is departing from it deliberately, and not from ignorance.40

While Eliot still maintains an emphasis on a single “author’s version” of the poem, his description of his reading as a “version” and the possibility of a text “being read in many ways, and with a variety of emotional emphases” offered a precedent for Brathwaite’s later reproductions of his own poems in many versions across multiple media. Brathwaite would elaborate Eliot’s sensitivity to the specificities of each medium, to how an audio recording

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“cannot exhaust” the “depth and complexity” of the written text, even as the written text can never “give an exact notation” of an audio recording. Equally importantly, Brathwaite would use the iterations of versioning and of audio recording and broadcasting to affirm a collective tradition: the shared “riddims” found in Eliot and in jazz’s continuous reworking of standards, taken to a new level by the bebop artists Charlie Parker (“Bird”), Dizzy Gillespie, and Kenny Clarke (“Klook”), who provoked such outrage among Barbadian radio listeners. When Brathwaite traveled to England to study at Cambridge University in 1950, the prominent Barbadian writer and editor Frank Collymore wrote Brathwaite a letter of introduction to Henry Swanzy, the editor of the BBC radio program Caribbean Voices.41 Like Eliot’s recordings, Caribbean Voices provided both an early model for Brathwaite’s use of sound technology and an example of the colonial mastery that his iterative approach would seek to overthrow. In the 1940s and 1950s, Caribbean Voices contributed to the rise of audio reproduction as a medium for literature in the Caribbean by broadcasting new work read aloud by Caribbean readers, including by the authors themselves if they happened to live in or pass through London, where the program was made.42 While at Cambridge, Brathwaite himself was invited “from time to time to read” on the program.43 Caribbean Voices thus made recorded sound the primary medium for identifying new voices in Anglophone Caribbean literature and the conduit for a virtual literary linkage between the Caribbean and the metropolitan center of London.44 Swanzy became editor of Caribbean Voices in 1946. Perhaps “because of his Irishness,” he helped promote a turn to the vernacular in Caribbean writing despite his position as colonial gatekeeper at the BBC in London.45 (He visited the region for the first time only in 1952.)46 Like the phonographic records that spread Eliot’s voice throughout and beyond the British Empire, promoting both a centrally dictated poetic standard and divergent local vernaculars, the medium of radio supported both centripetal and “centrifugal forces,” encouraging both “loyalty to the empire” and anticolonial resistance.47 In 1955 both Brathwaite and Swanzy took up positions in what was then the British colony of the Gold Coast, Brathwaite as an education officer and Swanzy on secondment from the BBC to the Gold Coast and later Ghana Broadcasting Service. The two saw each other frequently in Ghana, and both witnessed and participated in the transformation of the country from

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British colony to, in 1957, the first African nation to achieve independence from European colonialism.48 During his years in Ghana Brathwaite would turn to radio to sound out a new postcolonial rhythm: One remembers vividly the impact of the first outside broadcasts; the microphone travelling to gold mines; timber plantations, the new harbours of Takoradi and Tema; to the cocoa centres of Ashanti and Togoland, to the pioneering outposts of new highways, to the savannah, semi-desert country of the North, bringing in the voices of the people of the new nation making patterns of sound in hammer, engine, power saws, and the movement of earth and water.49

The recollection comes from Brathwaite’s 1960 review of Voices of Ghana, a selection of texts from the radio program The Singing Net, which Swanzy produced between 1955 and 1957 “on lines similar to Caribbean Voices,” and to which Brathwaite also contributed.50 In his review Brathwaite describes audio recording and broadcasting as producing a nation united by “patterns of sound.” He depicts the new nation as both materially underpinned by  communication technologies and imaginatively unified by its shared rhythms—by repetition. Brathwaite connects technology to rhythm through the “microphone travelling,” which links the development of mobile transistor tape recording technologies in the mid-1950s to the imagining of a diverse but united independent Ghana. He also implicitly contrasts the new mode of outside, dispersed, weblike networks of broadcasting with the earlier hierarchical, imperial mode of radio broadcasting from London out to Britain’s far-flung colonies (a distinction complicated by the white former BBC broadcaster Swanzy’s editorship of the radio program and book). Implicit here too is the impact of the transistor radio, which in the mid1950s made radio broadcasts available to communities beyond the electrical grid. Brathwaite’s imagining of postcolonial collectivity through the radio— the “new nation making patterns of sound”—parallels Frantz Fanon’s essay “This Is the Voice of Algeria,” published in 1959, the year prior to Brathwaite’s review. Fanon’s essay describes the impact of radio on Algerian nationalism and the war of independence. For Fanon, the radio effected and registered a complete change in national consciousness and an overturning of colonialism through a medium that had previously been seen as a tool of colonial oppression. Like Brathwaite, Fanon connects the rise of

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anticolonial movements to the rise of radio, especially the arrival of the transistor radio as a consumer product circa 1956. Fanon’s essay culminates in the radio welcoming “broadcasts from all the corners of the world” and producing an “immense tyranny-destroying wave.”51 Just as Brathwaite imagines the postcolonial nation as being linked by rhythmic sounds broadcast to—and so repeated in—every corner of the country, Fanon figures the rising tide of anticolonial movements across the world as a radio wave. In 1962 Brathwaite returned to the Caribbean and took up a position as resident tutor in the Department of Extra-mural Studies at the University of the West Indies, St. Lucia. One of the duties of his new position was to help run an extramural studies radio program broadcast on the Windward Islands Broadcasting Service. Another was to edit the second volume of Iouanaloa: Recent Writing from St. Lucia, published in 1963 to coincide with University Week. In editing the issue, Brathwaite drew on his new broadcasting experience and extended his emphasis on radio as both practical means and figure for the construction of a postcolonial society. Brathwaite included in the issue a broadcast address from the acting administrator and an article entitled “The Use of Radio in Education” (by Betty Anderson), alongside his own essay, “The Use of Radio in a Developing Society.” Echoing his review of Voices of Ghana three years earlier, Brathwaite’s essay stresses how “on-the-spot recordings”—such as the live broadcasts of lectures that he had recently initiated on the extramural studies radio program—could connect various parts of an emergent postcolonial Caribbean, whose national contours were still in flux after the recent collapse of the West Indies Federation.52 Brathwaite’s interest in radio reflected his broader commitment to the development of Caribbean culture as part of postcolonial nation building. Thus, alongside his essay on radio, Brathwaite also chose to reprint “Sir Galahad and the Islands,” an essay on the state of Caribbean literature originally published in 1957.53 Republished in 1963, “Sir Galahad and the Islands” speaks to the present moment of decolonization in the Caribbean and, implicitly, the audio reproduction technologies of radio and record addressed in the issue. The essay takes as one of its key examples Samuel Selvon’s The Calypsonian, which Brathwaite cites for its sense of “cultural poverty”: “They does think calypso is no song at all, and that what is song is numbers like I’ve Got You Under My Skin . . . what real American composers write.”54 Brathwaite uses this quotation from The Calypsonian to diagnose and criticize the “famine

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in the soul of the West Indian artist,” the “hopelessness” and “fire of brilliant loneliness” that he also finds in Derek Walcott and Roger Mais and that he sees as the result of “barriers to correspondence within society.” These barriers between middle class and “folk” “prompt some artists to emigrate, while providing an emotional raison d’etre for those who remain.”55 By reprinting his analysis in Iouanaloa, Brathwaite implies that his appeal to radio is an effort to overcome these barriers. Echoing and reframing Eliot, he stresses that the “individual talent is not enough”; the Caribbean artist or writer must draw on the “whole living . . . tradition”: the tradition of the folk.56 Elsewhere in the issue, Brathwaite presents local radio as crucial to overcoming such class divisions and accessing this living tradition by transcending the literacy divide, linking people “at both ends of the radio beam,” and fighting the “distrust of the local” perpetuated by the reliance on overseas media.57 Thus in answer to the sense of cultural poverty in Selvon’s phrase “they does think calypso is no song at all,” Brathwaite offers an essay by Denis DaBreo on “The Calypso” that immediately follows “Sir Galahad and the Islands.” DaBreo begins by citing “Mighty Sparrow,” one of the most famous calypsonians of the time, “in one of his latest tunes,” and he boldly concludes, “There can be no talk of West Indian ‘Art’ and ‘Culture’ without reference to the calypso.”58 When it first appeared in 1957, “Sir Galahad and the Islands” echoed not DaBreo but a poem published the previous year. Under its revised title, “Calypso,” this was the poem that Brathwaite would later cite as the first time he had successfully embodied Caribbean rhythm in his poetry: The stone had skidded arc’d and bloomed into islands: Cuba and San Domingo Jamaica and Puerto Rico Grenada Guadeloupe Bonaire curved stone hissed into reef wave teeth fanged into clay white splash flashed into spray Bathsheba Montego Bay59

Brathwaite’s review of Voices of Ghana links the diverse parts of the new nation through the rhythms captured on the traveling microphone. Likewise, “Calypso”

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links the diverse Caribbean islands through the calypso rhythm. This rhythm is beat out by an imagined giant skipping stone whose trajectory describes the islands’ arc. Just as Brathwaite’s calypso rhythm can only be reproduced through audio recordings of the poem, so the arc is also implicitly that of a record groove traced by a needle, whose up and down movements similarly reproduce the calypso beat. It is also a radio wave connecting a politically divided Caribbean through rhythm. Echoing Walcott’s vision of “islands curved like the fling of a stone to sea,” but overturning his cultural pessimism, Brathwaite layers forms of repetition from stone and wave to needle and groove, from radio wave to ink and page.60 Read alongside “Calypso,” Brathwaite’s essay revalues the repetitions and rhythms of the calypso, spread by radio and record, in answer to those writers—in particular Eric Roach—who attempt to look to the folk tradition but find only “ ‘sameness’: repetition and tonelessness.” Brathwaite argues that such repetition leads Roach into the temptation “to move away from the strenuousness of his barriered society; to migrate, that is, if not in fact, at any rate by metaphor.” Such metaphorical flights (“soaring trees . . . hawk hearts, frigate birds passing ‘into the horizonless and glorious landscapes of the soul’ ”) are also the danger that accompanies the postcolonial possibilities of the radio and the record.61 With its references to tourist spots such as “Montego Bay” and caricatured images of “bacchanalling” dancers, Brathwaite’s poem underscores how the calypso—disconnected from its Trinidadian roots of irony and biting political commentary—was riding the airwaves and topping record charts around the world in the wake of the runaway success of Harry Belafonte’s 1956 Calypso album.62 In Iouanaloa Brathwaite presents radio as a form that can bridge barriers of class and literacy among the Caribbean islands and, more broadly, the African diaspora. But such postcolonial uses of radio were hardly uncontested. Brathwaite would later claim that on the very night the issue of Iouanaloa was launched, the prime minister of St. Lucia took such offense at Brathwaite’s advocacy of local broadcasting and criticism of the Windward Isles Broadcasting Service that he shut down a live extramural studies broadcast.63 As the anecdote suggests, Brathwaite was well aware that he had equally to contend with radio as a figure for authoritarianism, for imperial domination—as in the dominance of the London-based BBC over its colonial subjects—and, like the calypso, for emergent forms of locationless globalism.

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In a poem first drafted in the early 1960s, Brathwaite writes of “bridges of sound” linking Nairobi, Havana, and Harlem. Recalling the linkage of radio, rhythm, and land in his review of Voices of Ghana and his identification of Caribbean “riddims” and St. Louis jazz in Eliot’s voice, Brathwaite connects the rhythms of the “quick drummer” to the “dust plains” of “antelope” and “buffaloes.” He thus links radio’s transatlantic sonic reach (“bridges of sound”) to the rhythm of adapted, creolized, iterated traditions that contain memories of the Middle Passage (the “stink . . . in the hot hull”) and of their African origins.64 Brathwaite’s discovery of the Middle Passage in the trumpet’s wail also echoes “the smoldering memory / Of slave ships” in Langston Hughes’s “Trumpet Player” (1949), and like Hughes’s “Broadcast to the West Indies” (1943), Brathwaite’s poem affirms “black diasporic community” via the airways.65 Yet the “bridges of sound” in the sky also threaten to become groundless: to be lost in “the New York air” with “no sound to carry earth up to his fathoms / no ground to keep him down near the gods.” 66 Here, as elsewhere in Brathwaite’s writing, radio threatens to become a tool for the “control of subjugated people,” who feed on the pacifying “milk of transistors / all day long.” 67 Like Fanon registering radio as waves of political upheaval both localized and geographically unbound, Brathwaite implicitly uses radio as a figure for the contrary possibilities of repetition: repetition as the assertion of cultural connection and location and repetition as the mimic men’s threat of dislocated globalism. WRITING ON TAPE

The poem “Jah” not only alludes to radio’s “bridges of sound” as a model (and problem) for a pan-African poetics but is itself partly a subtle reworking of a series of jazz poems that Brathwaite wrote in 1960. “Jah,” for instance, reprises several images—including a soaring “eagle” and the hulls of slave ships—from “Solo for Trumpet.” 68 “Solo for Trumpet” and other poems in Brathwaite’s jazz series are in turn inseparable from another medium for audio reproduction: tape. Brathwaite recalls writing the “8 or 9 jazz poems,” six of which were published in Kyk-over-al, “a few days after my first return to Barbados in 1960, returning them into my new reel-to-reel Philips tape recorder, accompanied on my record player . . . by the pieces that had inspired the poems.” 69 Brathwaite’s jazz poems applied the new

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overdubbing and multitracking possibilities of tape to poetry.70 Just as Brathwaite found in radio at this time a model for a new literature that would break down the barriers of class, geography, and colonial cringe, so he extended this vision through the newly available medium of the reel-toreel tape. Whereas a radio program or an LP record required significant infrastructure to produce, the tape—liberated from one location in the late 1950s by transistor technology—offered a means to link and fuse the DJ’s work on record player and radio directly with the poetic text. Through such iterative practices as overdubbing, reversioning, and remixing, tape allowed Brathwaite to reimagine and reinvent cultural relations. As his wife, Doris Brathwaite, attests, after the initial experiments with the jazz poems, Brathwaite adopted “the idea of using a tape recorder, with or without music, as a test and projection of the verse.”71 In 1960 Brathwaite took his new Philips tape recorder back to Ghana, where he and Doris continued to experiment with tape and, in particular, with the doubletracking possibilities of recording voice over the soundtrack of a phonographic record. Together the Brathwaites produced “our Ghana tape w/ her [Doris Brathwaite’s] Xtraordinary reading of ‘Charity’ (I Corinthians 13) & Lorca’s ‘Death of a Bullfighter’ both of which I had recorded in Ghana w/ (on the Lorca) her reading interweav ing w/ Miles Davis’ Concierto de Aranjuez from Sket ches of Spain, as if she, somehow, had created them all into a single breathing.”72 Just as Brathwaite would later draw on Alan Lomax’s recordings of Caribbean oral traditions, Miles Davis and Gil Evans explicitly cite “Lomax’s field work for the Columbia World Library of Folk and Primitive Music series and for other labels” in the liner notes to their interweaving of jazz and Spanish folk music.73 The Brathwaites’ tape provided a new means and model for conceiving and making such mixings of sonic cultural traditions, remixes that themselves depended on the rise of field recordings of folk music enabled by tape. In combining two audio reproduction machines—the record player and the new read-write capabilities of the tape recorder—Brathwaite produced a multitrack montage that anticipated the dub versioning then developing in Jamaica, to which the Brathwaites would relocate in mid-1963, a year after returning to the Caribbean. In the early 1960s, Jamaican producers began to use dub plates in the “process of ‘versioning,’ a method of serially recycling recorded material developed by producers desiring to ensure the longest commercial life for a given piece of recorded music despite economic

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constraints and a limited pool of musicians.” By the mid-1960s the DJs who operated the sound systems in Jamaica had begun to rap, or “toast,” over the music—hence their increasing need for remixed instrumental, or “dub,” tracks.74 The Jamaican sound engineering experiments would reshape popular music globally—and contribute to the wider cultural turn to iteration—giving rise to the hip-hop poetics of “remaking . . . consumption as production” through “ ‘sampling’ pre-recorded sounds.”75 If “from the global perspective . . . Jamaica’s emphasis on versioning facilitated the transformation of formerly fixed pop songs into the more fluid, remix-based conceptions of composing typified by today’s digital technology,” a similar argument can be made about the importance of Brathwaite’s versioning practices to poetry.76 Through tape, Brathwaite developed an iterative poetics that, like dub music, is “mutable and modular,” in which each poem or series of poems can be reworked, rearranged, and remediated.77 In summer 1964, the year after he moved from St. Lucia to Jamaica, Brathwaite drafted his long poem Rights of Passage, a work that was to make his reputation and in which the tape recorder and the processes of recording and versioning assumed an even greater importance. Brathwaite recalls that after completing a first draft of Rights of Passage, “I knew right away . . . that it called for ORAL RESONANCE. I mean I just had to read it out onto tape almost at once and all the drafts after the first one were influenced by the sound on the tape.”78 From this comment, it seems likely that Brathwaite’s rewriting process involved something like recording, listening, rewriting, and rerecording. Certainly, previously published poems that recur in Rights of Passage, such as “Calypso,” show clear evidence of revision aimed at “ORAL RESONANCE.”79 At least in part, Brathwaite was writing on tape and for tape. What have often been called the oral qualities of Brathwaite’s poetry are in fact qualities of a tape-based iterative audio practice. So important was tape to Brathwaite’s conception of Rights of Passage that he chose tape as what he later termed the work’s first medium of “publication.”80 Brathwaite first publicly shared a tape recording of the work in Jamaica in 1965, playing the entire one-and-a-half-hour recording to a live audience.81 According to Brathwaite, he made this 1965 recording “on his reel to reel ‘with all the natural sounds inside it’—wind, waves, cocks crowing, dogs barking, cars passing, people walking, talking.”82 When Brathwaite moved to England the following year to complete a PhD in history at

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Sussex University, he took the tape recording with him. John La Rose recalls the occasion, in late 1966, when he visited Brathwaite’s London flat and first heard Rights of Passage: “When we got to their flat, Eddie [Brathwaite] was already beginning to play a taped recording of himself reading Rights of Passage. I was amazed at the beauty and power of his reading. I had never known anyone read so well. Having heard the entire recording of the reading, I immediately proposed to him that New Beacon should put on a public reading.”83 This reading, on March 3, 1967, became the first public event of the Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM), which Brathwaite helped to found and in which tape also played a leading role. From the outset, the Brathwaites established a practice of making audio recordings of CAM talks, readings, and discussions with “a speciallypurchased, heavy Akai reel-to-reel machine” that “had to be transported to each meeting, usually by Doris Brathwaite on her motorbike,” and which was also operated by Doris. The Brathwaites regarded the session tapes “as an extremely valuable part of CAM’s work” and insisted on not only taping each event but also transcribing it “laboriously on a manual typewriter, without the benefit of a transcription machine.”84 Transcriptions were then published in the CAM Newsletter, which Brathwaite edited for the first five issues. Tape became not only Brathwaite’s medium of poetic composition but also the medium through which he sought to create and document CAM and so establish the movement’s historical importance in the struggle for Caribbean cultural independence. Tape also provided the means to progress Brathwaite’s argument about the centrality of the drum and spoken and sung word in Caribbean culture. Following the success of Brathwaite’s public performance of Rights of Passage, CAM’s second public session was held at the West Indian Students’ Centre in London on April 7, 1967, and centered on a paper by Gordon Rohlehr, who presented a close reading of the Mighty Sparrow’s calypsos and argued for their artistic value. The paper, later revised and published as “Sparrow and the Language of Calypso,” became “a landmark in West Indian literary criticism. By applying the same criteria to the sung lyrics of a popular calypsonian as to the poems of literary writers, he attempted for the first time to break down the separation between the oral and written traditions.”85 However, rather than appealing to the oral, it would be more accurate to say that Rohlehr’s talk depended on the interrelationship between audio recording and written text for both its argument and for its

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subsequent impact on Caribbean literary and cultural studies. In his talk, Rohlehr not only referred to Sparrow’s published book of calypso lyrics but also played some of Sparrow’s recent records.86 Rohlehr’s talk equally became a “landmark” because of the Akai reel-to-reel machine that the Brathwaites used to record and transcribe the talk and the ensuing discussion for the CAM Newsletter.87 The canonization of Rohlehr’s talk as an event thus depended on the same mix of live performance, audio recording, and print as the calypsos that it aimed to describe. On February 3, 1967, Brathwaite anticipated Rohlehr’s argument for the resources of the drum and of spoken and sung forms in his lecture “Jazz and the West Indian Novel,” delivered to an invited CAM audience.88 In the essay of the same name, published later that year, Brathwaite quotes from the taped discussion that followed Rohlehr’s paper. He transcribes the worry about Sparrow’s “belly-centred bawdy” expressed by George Odlum, who quotes Walcott’s aphorism “we must teach our philosophy to reach above the navel.” Brathwaite cites these views to develop his polemical response that “it is around this very navel that the battle rages. The alternative tradition is belly-centred: in the beat, the drum, the apparent bawdy.”89 In citing Odlum, Brathwaite acknowledges how Rohlehr’s talk extends his own argument for the place of the “beat” and the spoken and sung word in the Caribbean tradition. This argument is already present in his reference to Selvon’s Calypsonian in “Sir Galahad and the Islands” and in his mid-1960s recorded and live readings of Rights of Passage, which invoke and perform various folk and popular musical forms, including the calypso. But by the time of “Jazz and the West Indian Novel,” Brathwaite much more clearly identifies Caribbean folk traditions, popular music, vernacular speech, and especially their underlying rhythmic structure (“the beat, the drum”) with an alternative tradition “based on an African inheritance.”90 By citing Odlum in his essay, Brathwaite not only acknowledges and counters objections to his advocacy of popular musical forms and the spoken word; he also enacts his emphasis on the spoken word by incorporating Odlum’s speech, recorded and transcribed, into the essay. Yet Brathwaite does not simply take one side in the oralwritten, African-European binaries through which the debate over Caribbean culture was increasingly framed at this time. Instead, as the act of transcription suggests, Brathwaite’s writing depends on the remediation of speech in print and tape.91

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Repeatedly in “Jazz and the West Indian Novel,” Brathwaite turns to tape recording, citing, for instance, an “unpublished poem, transcribed here from tape,” as an example of “Guyanese speech patterns” used to “improvisatory effect” and a tape recording of an Anancy story told in Grenada.92 Brathwaite dwells on the difference between the audio recording and transcription of the Anancy story, emphasizing that “a transcription cannot illustrate the formal elements used in telling the story: the varying tones of the narrator’s voice, the rhythmic pulse and variations of the piece, broken up by patois song and the interjections and responses—kric kric; kra— of the participating audience, and the use of the drum.”93 Brathwaite also cites Robert Le Page and David De Camp’s Jamaican Creole (1960), which contains transcriptions of recorded oral tales, in the original dialect and in Standard English translation. On the one hand, the reference again provides an opportunity to appeal to the unmediated performance behind the transcription: “In this ‘English’ version, of course, the rhythmic ‘jazz’ elements are not conveyed.” On the other hand, Brathwaite uses these differences as an opportunity to stress the possibilities of versioning by quoting the same passage in the original dialect.94 He implies that the difference between Standard English and the transcription of dialect phrasing is analogous to the difference between hearing the tape and reading the oral transcription. Through such tape recordings and transcriptions of oral stories and songs, Brathwaite connects the Caribbean to Africa. Yet his pan-Africanism does not privilege the oral over the written, as critics sometimes infer from his late 1960s rhetoric. Instead, Brathwaite intensifies the technological mediations masked by the apparent immediacy of orality. MASKS OF ORALITY

Tape recording provided Brathwaite with the means to identify a Caribbean oral tradition and to enact that tradition in his own poetry. Far from being a nostalgic appeal to some prelapsarian past, Brathwaite’s projection of an alternative “African-based” Caribbean tradition drew on the modern conception of orality that emerged out of recording and transcription. Without the ability to record and transcribe, for instance, Albert Lord and Milman Parry would not have been able to develop their theory of both the conventionalized units and improvisatory elements of oral literature. As

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Parry wrote in 1935, “it has only been in the last few years that the science of electrical sound recording has given us an apparatus of such a sort that it can record songs of any length and in the large numbers needed before one can draw conclusions, and finally which can make records which are so good that the words on them can be accurately written down for the purpose of close study.”95 In the Caribbean too, conceptions of orality and technology were mutually shaping. Jean Price-Mars’s book Ainsi parla l’oncle (So Spoke the Uncle) not only called on middle-class Haitians to value vernacular speech and popular traditions but also influenced Melville Herskovitz, Lomax, and others who from the 1930s began recording Caribbean speech, songs, and stories, so contributing to the development of midtwentieth-century conceptions of orality.96 Brathwaite’s conception of Caribbean oral literature was in turn shaped by these recordings, as well as deeply indebted to Price-Mars.97 Midcentury theories of orality were, in other words, the product of a complex interplay of written text, audio recording, and spoken word, and of efforts to revalue practices that lay outside European high culture. Oral literature was often presented as antithetical to the mechanical reproduction that characterized modernity. Yet Lord and Parry emphasized oral literature’s qualities of “life, spontaneity and soul” partly to counter their own theory’s suggestion that oral practices involved “soulless mechanical production,” and partly because their recordings and transcriptions produced a new aliveness to variation.98 Whereas Lord and Parry used recording and transcription to point to the many versions of an epic produced in an oral tradition, the singers themselves asserted that there were no differences, that each performance was the same because it preserved the elements expected of the epic poem.99 The versioning, improvisation, and variation that Lord and Parry and many afterward have associated with oral literature were as much if not more products of the recording technologies through which oral traditions were captured and studied. Marshall McLuhan’s account of “the spoken word” in Understanding Media, for example, begins by quoting a doubly mediated transcription of a tape recording of a radio DJ.100 As Brathwaite’s practice reveals, this invention of orality through audio recording offered not so much an accurate description of oral literature as a prescription for poetry in our multimedia age: that is, a formula for iterative poetics. Brathwaite’s obsession with new technologies of reproduction was, therefore, not in opposition to his emphasis on oral tradition, but part and

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parcel of how orality came to be imagined in the mid-twentieth century via new media. Brathwaite’s imagining of orality was intertwined with technologies of reproduction, recording, transcription, and reiteration. It was also woven through with a postcolonial desire to uncover a submerged tradition. Brathwaite sought to fuse this unstable combination of motives through what Paul Gilroy would later call the “volatile core of Afro-Atlantic creation”: the “changing  . . . same” and “unity and differentiation” of the black Atlantic musical tradition.101 We hear Brathwaite’s merger of media technologies and postcolonial desire through music in Rights of Passage. In this first part of his Arrivants trilogy, Brathwaite maps and connects diverse historical and contemporary elements of the African diaspora through a DJ-like mixing of work song, blues, jazz, and calypso. Through their shared quality of repetition, he implicitly connects the rhythms of oral poetry and music to the remixing and versioning enabled by recording technologies. Brathwaite found a model for his conception of oral literature and for his own multimedia iterative poetics in the work of musicologist J. H. Kwabena Nketia, whom Brathwaite met during his time in Ghana and whom he has described as “the basic influence” on his work.102 Nketia’s accounts of Akan drumming, music, song, and dance published in the 1950s and 1960s were based on his field recordings on reel-to-reel tape, which he transcribed and translated into English.103 Brathwaite read a number of Nketia’s books and articles on the subject of Akan music, drumming, song, and ritual.104 However, Brathwaite’s poetry owes a particular debt to Nketia’s “The Poetry of Drums,” the opening text in Voices of Ghana, which he had reviewed in 1960. Voices of Ghana and Nketia’s “The Poetry of Drums” provide Brathwaite with the material and structure for Masks, the second part of the Arrivants trilogy. Masks and Voices of Ghana both begin with an epigraph based on the same Akan proverb about the proper treatment of one’s origins. “Only the fool points at his origins with his left hand” provides the epigraph to Masks, while Voices of Ghana’s epigraph is a poem by I. K. Hoh in the original and in English translation, the final stanza of which reads: Should I ever be forced to use the left hand To point to my town and compatriots,

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Who did much for me in days of yore— Let the ship go, I will follow on foot.105

In Masks the search for origins leads Brathwaite to invoke the cultural heritage of West Africa and even the entire continent: the opening lines announce a song that emerges from “the seven / kingdoms: / Songhai, Mali, / Chad, Ghana, / Tim- / buctu, Volta / and the bitter / waste / that was / Ben- / in,” from “Zu- / lus,” “Congo and all Africa.”106 Masks also reflects on the history of slavery that brought Brathwaite’s ancestors and their cultural traditions to the Caribbean, drawing to a conclusion with the speaker “Exiled from here // to seas / of bitter edges, // whips of white worlds.”107 The poem also doubles as the story of Brathwaite’s personal discovery of his African heritage while living in Ghana, a discovery that allows him, in Islands, the final part of the Arrivants trilogy, to return home with a new recognition of the West African traditions underlying Caribbean culture. Brathwaite deploys these interwoven historical and contemporary stories to explore the problem of pointing to one’s origins. Masks is concerned with finding a poetic mode capable of responsibly negotiating this act of mediation. In Masks origins—and the related notions of authenticity, orality, and tradition—come only through mediation and iteration. Identity and nationality are multiple and flexible; and traditions are continuously renewed, as in Brathwaite’s repetition and adaptation of an Akan proverb.108 Origins, identity, and tradition are all mediated through technological reproduction, including the tape, radio, and print that produced Nketia’s account of the Akan “Poetry of Drums” in Voices of Ghana. Brathwaite makes Masks embody the African tradition that it describes and gives unity to its layered story by having the book’s framing structure echo Nketia’s account and translated transcription of the Akan “drum prelude” called Anyaneanyane (The awakening). In “The Poetry of Drums,” Nketia describes Anyaneanyane as one of the four types of “texts of Akan drum language.”109 The poems that open and conclude Masks are titled, respectively, “Prelude” and “The Awakening,” the two names that Nketia uses to translate the term Anyaneanyane. Like Nketia’s account of the drum prelude, Masks begins by invoking the parts of the drums in “The Making of the Drum” (the second poem in Masks) and draws to a close with an address to the god Tano (the penultimate poem in Masks is

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entitled “Tano”). The final poem, “The Awakening,” as the title suggests, reinforces the connection to the Anyaneanyane form: I will rise and stand on my feet slowly slowly ever so slowly I will rise and stand on my feet Like akoko the cock like akoko the cock who cries who cries in the morning akoko bon’ opa akoko tua bon I am learning let me succeed I am learning let me succeed . . . 110

These concluding lines of Masks echo Nketia’s translated transcription: “The cock crows in the morning,” “Slowly and patiently I get on my feet,” and the refrain “I am learning, let me succeed,” which unifies and concludes the Anyaneanyane text in Nketia’s translation.111 In adapting Nketia’s translation of the Anyaneanyane drumming prelude, Brathwaite also adopts Nketia’s account of oral literature as the model for his developing iterative poetics of remixing and remediation. Nketia presents the Akan drum language as an “unwritten literature” built around traditional forms variously adapted to meet new circumstances. He describes the Anyaneanyane as a single traditional “text of the drum

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prelude” that is nevertheless open to variation because the tradition provides “material for building up texts in new situations.”112 The third poem in Masks, “Atumpan” (meaning “Akan talking drum”), illustrates Brathwaite’s adaptation of both Nketia’s translation and his understanding of the oral text as a form that can be adapted to “new situations.” The poem begins: Kon kon kon kon kun kun kun kun 113

These opening lines recall Nketia: “He begins with the signal kon kon ken ken ken ken. . . . After that the drummer announces himself, and at the close he says either I am learning, let me succeed or I am addressing you, and you will understand. He then goes on to address various parts of the drum which are also ‘awakened’ for the festival—the wood, the pegs, the skin, the string, the drum stick and the rattle on the drum and says to each one in turn: I am learning, let me succeed.”114 Brathwaite adopts and adapts these conventions. He has already addressed “various parts of the drum” in the previous poem, “The Making of the Drum,” where his litany also includes wood, skin, sticks, and rattles, though the drum is made in a Caribbean rather than West African style.115 Underscoring the ability of the poet or drummer to vary traditional material to meet the demands of new contexts, in “Atumpan” Brathwaite deploys a mixed versioning of the drum prelude’s two possible closing lines, after invoking, as in Nketia’s translation, the cock who “crows in the morning,” a line that, as we have seen, will be reprised in the concluding poem of Masks: like akoko the cock like akoko the cock who clucks who crows in the morning who crows in the morning we are addressing you ye re kyere wo we are addressing you ye re kyere wo

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listen let us succeed listen may we succeed . . . 116

The shift from “let us succeed” and “may we succeed” in the final lines of “Atumpan” to “let me succeed” in the final poem, “The Awakening,” marks the tension between the individual and the collective in Masks and in Anyaneanyane drumming. As Nketia explains, the drumming prelude is both a collective ritual and a lone act of creation: the drummer plays alone early in the morning on the date of the Adae festival with the expectation that the people of the village “will hear him and will be enjoying his poetry.”117 The iterations and variations between “Atumpan” and the final poem, “The Awakening,” also exemplify Nketia’s account of the oral text as at once a definable object and open to endless permutations and adaptations.118 Both poems are in turn written adaptations of Nketia’s translation of a taperecorded and transcribed Akan drum prelude. Brathwaite derives an iterative poetics of versioning from Nketia’s account of the Akan oral tradition, but that account and Brathwaite’s adaptation of it—like other midcentury theories of orality—rely on the ability to record or inscribe multiple versions of a performance or text. In his first broadcast and later printed account, Nketia compares the “Akan drum language” to modern media—to “the radio, the telephone, the telegram, the newspaper and so on.”119 Similarly, Brathwaite describes Masks as composed on his Philips reel-to-reel tape recorder.120 In Masks and The Arrivants as a whole, Brathwaite mediates orality and origins through tape and transcription to derive a model for his iterative poetics. The Arrivants reveals its tape-inflected versioning structure most clearly in Brathwaite’s recorded performances. Although the first recordings and performances of Rights of Passage and Masks seem to have followed the order of the printed text, as early as December 1967 Brathwaite was integrating poems from the still unpublished third part of the trilogy, Islands, into a recorded talk in which he also sampled the tape-recorded voice of historian and fellow Caribbean Artists Movement participant Elsa Goveia.121 And by the following year, he was producing thematic remixes of poems from all three books of the trilogy in live performances that were

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also frequently recorded on tape (and much later digitally).122 Almost forty years after writing Masks, in a 2004 reading in New York City, Brathwaite performed and recorded a versioning of The Arrivants that uses variations on the phrase “let me succeed” to abridge and remix the poetic trilogy.123 In his reading Brathwaite begins with the poem “Negus,” which concludes with an appeal to the Haitian god of crossroads and thresholds, Papa Legba, to “fill me with words.” The appeal resembles the drummer’s invocation of poetic power through the repeated refrain “let me succeed” in the drumming prelude translated by Nketia.124 Through this echo, Brathwaite segues from “Negus,” which appears in Islands, to the second poem in Masks, “The Making of the Drum,” a poem whose invocation of the parts of the drum adapts the second part of the Anyaneanyane in Nketia’s description.125 Through this juxtaposition, Brathwaite connects the Anyaneanyane’s initial sounding of the drum (“kon kon”) to the stuttering repetition that opens “Negus”: It it it it is not it it it it is not it is not it is not it is not enough126

By repeating the word “it,” Brathwaite, like the talking drum, turns rhythmic repetition into language and language into rhythmic repetition. At the conclusion of “Negus,” Brathwaite reiterates and transforms the stuttering “it” into another syllabic drumbeat: Att Att Attibon

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Attibon Legba Attibon Legba Ouvri bayi pou’ moi Ouvri bayi pou’ moi . . . 127

The “Att” echoes “it,” and the entire phrase “Attibon Legba” echoes the rhythm of the words “it is not enough.” But instead of marking lack (“not enough”), the syllable “Att” begins the traditional Haitian patois invocation of Legba. This rhythmic and near phonemic repetition stresses how iteration, as repetition with difference, can both register and exceed the limits of language. The shift from “it is not” to “Attibon” marks a movement from negative to positive—from the stuttering struggle to speak at the opening (“it is not enough to be free / of the whips, principalities and powers / where is your kingdom of the Word?”) to the power of the god Legba, who is called upon, in the poem’s concluding lines, to “Ouvri bayi pou’ moi” (open the gate for me).128 In the recording, this concluding call to the god known as the “keeper of the gates” opens the door to the African tradition of Masks, echoing Brathwaite’s aim, announced at the start of the reading, to allow the poems to “threshold one into the other.”129 After “The Making of the Drum,” Brathwaite follows the order of Masks and reads on to “Atumpan,” which, drawing on Nketia, begins with the onomatopoeic rendering of the drum speech “Kon kon kon kon” and concludes with “may we succeed.”130 Brathwaite thereby highlights the echoes between “Negus” and “Atumpan”: both deploy the repetition of single-syllable words and both express the speaker’s or drummer’s wish to be successful in performance. In “Negus” the stuttering failure to speak marks the colonial or neocolonial repression of Caribbean and ultimately African cultural expression: “it is not enough / to be pause, to be hole / to be void, to be silent / to be semicolon, to be semicolony.”131 But this stuttering failure is repeated and transformed into the rhythmic power of invocation. In the 2004 reading it functions as a transitional sound in the movement back across the Atlantic from the English “not” and French “bon” to “kon kon,” the sound of the Akan talking drum. In his 2004 reading Brathwaite uses the lines that, adapted from Nketia’s translation, conclude “Atumpan” to motivate another transatlantic displacement (and another leap across more than one hundred pages in The Arrivants) to a poem from Islands entitled “Naming.” Whereas “Atumpan”

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ends with the lines “let us succeed // listen / may we succeed,” “Naming” begins: “How then shall we / succeed?”132 The interrogative initiates a search for “meaning” and for the “word” that leads, in Islands, to the question “Negus” poses: “where is your kingdom of the Word?” The reading thus creates a pathway through The Arrivants: the search for words in “Negus” is answered by the Akan drumming of Masks, whose plea for success (“may we succeed”) then returns us to the problems of cultural articulation in the contemporary Caribbean: “How then shall we / succeed?”133 Through such versioning and remediation—in print, performance, and audio recording— Brathwaite highlights and instantiates the poem’s repeated movements between the Caribbean and West Africa. Each version—each performed, recorded, or printed instantiation of the trilogy—describes only one cycle in this continuous transatlantic circulation.134 “Naming” addresses the cyclical interrelationship between West Africa and the Caribbean through an annual meteorological event—the season when the dust clouds from the Sahara come sweeping across the Atlantic to the Windward Isles: “This is the drought. / It is a fine haze. // On clear days / lifting from Africa / it is the desert’s gift.”135 Brathwaite uses the same image of Saharan dust clouds over the Caribbean to introduce and frame Rights of Passage in the liner notes to the first record of the LP version of the poem. He later used this passage from his liner notes as an epigraph to his essay “The African Presence in Caribbean Literature”: “Living in St. Lucia at this time, I watched this drought drift in towards the island. . . . And I suddenly realized that what I was witnessing—that milky haze, that sense of dryness— was something I had seen and felt before in Ghana. It was the seasonal dustcloud, drifting out of the great ocean of Sahara.”136 Brathwaite’s repetitions here suggest an analogy between the reiteration of his words across media and genres (sound recording, liner notes, long poem, and essay), the poem’s transatlantic movements, and the dust cloud’s seasonal cycles. The dust cloud in “Naming” contributes to the structural oscillation between Africa and the Caribbean in The Arrivants and to the trilogy’s equally important cycling between dryness and rain. In Islands “Negus” follows “Naming.” The search for words and meaning articulated in “Naming” is continued in “Negus” through a turn to the drumbeat “it / it / it.” This drumbeat is, Brathwaite writes in the liner notes to the Islands LP recording, also the sound of the “raindrop” of protest breaking the drought of neocolonialism: “hunger mothers who raise dry leaves to the sky; who can no longer reach

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meat; cannot offer to lips, the tips of protein milk.”137 Dust recurs frequently in The Arrivants and serves not only as a figure for ancestral memory and connection (as in “Naming” and “Dust”) but also as a figure for hardship that contrasts with the promise of rain, greenery, and new life. The interplay between dust and rain can be read in part as Brathwaite’s adaptation of and response to Eliot’s The Waste Land. Brathwaite’s use of Eliot involves what Matthew Hart terms a “versus” relation of “mash-up,” “remix,” and “competitive fusion.”138 Brathwaite not only turns Eliot’s “consolations of a broken liturgy” into a contrary “determination to face the future,” as Hart notes.139 He also transforms Eliot’s dust from a symbol of aridness and loss into part of an annual cycle, in which repetition becomes the source of natural and poetic power. Brathwaite thus extends the iterative implications of Eliot’s liner notes, which find in the poem as audio text the potential for infinite rhythmic versioning. Brathwaite thereby emphasizes Eliot’s “riddim,” as he puts it, and so a model of tradition as intersecting lines of repetition, rather than a search for “fragments . . . shored against my ruins.”140 Brathwaite’s drumbeat repetitions from “it / it” to “kon kon” expand the rhythms of Eliot. The “DA,” “DA,” “DA” and onomatopoeia of the cock in “What the Thunder Said” recur in The Arrivants. But Brathwaite’s cock and drumbeat also derive from Nketia’s account of the Anyaneanyane drumming prelude. Equally, while Eliot’s repeated “DA” is echoed in the “dumb / dumb / dumb” drumbeat of “Shepherd”—the poem that follows “Naming” in Brathwaite’s 2004 reading—this unspeaking (“dumb”) speech of the drum also recalls the “dam / dam / damirifa” refrain of “Tano,” the Akan “cry of pity and sorrow” from the penultimate poem of Masks.141 In the context of the reading, “Shepherd” also recalls “The Making of the Drum,” whose lines “God is dumb / until the drum / speaks” are echoed in the former poem’s line “the dumb speaks.”142 The interplay between dumb and drum (or as Brathwaite puts it, the “counterpoint between the broken lines of the verse, and the shifting but basic rhythms of its impetus”) offers a way to think connection and relationship other than through a fragment-whole binary.143 Iteration never comes to completion but advances rhythms and rhymes that extend cyclically. This rhythmic conception of composition parallels the rhythms that link the poems of The Arrivants and that Brathwaite highlights in his 2004 reading. Like “Negus” and “Naming,” “Shepherd”

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addresses the problem of voicelessness— of being “dumb”—and out of that speechlessness produces the speech of the “drum” (heard punningly and onomatopoeically in the repetition of “dumb”). “Shepherd” thereby performs the oscillation that the whole reading describes: between lack (“it is not,” “dumb”) and the affirmation of the talking drum (“Attibon,” “kon”). In the 2004 New York reading Brathwaite follows “Shepherd” with another example of the Caribbean drum-centered tradition, “The Twist” from Rights of Passage, the first volume of The Arrivants. Through this reordering, Brathwaite implicitly frames the poem as another example of the persistence of African rhythm in the Caribbean “shacks” (“Shepherd”) and “shanty town” (“Twist”) that also link the two poems:144 In a little shanty town was on a night like this girls were sitting down around the town like this some were young and some were brown I even found a miss who was black and brown and really did the twist watch her move her wrist and feel your belly twist feel the hunger thunder when her hip bones twist try to hold her, keep her under while the juke box hiss

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twist the music out of hunger on a night like this.145

The poem marks the first time in the New York reading that Brathwaite moves fully into song.146 Brathwaite was already performing “The Twist” and some other poems in The Arrivants as songs in his recordings of the trilogy from the 1960s.147 These musical performed versions illustrate Brathwaite’s method of writing on tape, since the “riddim”—or in Eliot’s words, “the author’s metric”—can only be conveyed in a live reading or recording. Hence already in the late 1960s, Brathwaite presented the LPs of his trilogy—and by extension each recorded performance—as equally important versions of the poem, rather than subordinate to the printed text.148 Brathwaite’s audio performance of “The Twist” extends the poem’s poetics of versioning, of texts adapted to new situations and new media. Most obviously, it reinforces the poem’s allusion to the 1960 US hit “The Twist,” sung by Chubby Checker. Like Checker, Brathwaite stresses the final three syllables of each sung phrase. Checker’s “do the twist” becomes “did the twist,” and Brathwaite also echoes the rhyme words “this” and “miss.” As elsewhere in The Arrivants and especially in Rights of Passage, Brathwaite uses an audio recording as the implicit backing track and basis for his versioning (a process made explicit in the poems he taped over recorded music), even as he reframes the song in the context of Caribbean “shanty town” poverty and “hunger.” In the New York reading Brathwaite goes on to perform “Wings of a Dove” and then “Caliban,” so linking the dancing of “The Twist” to the Rastafarian rhythms of “Wings of a Dove” and to the drumbeat that accompanies the limbo dancer in “Caliban,” both of which Brathwaite performs through a rhythmic tapping (perhaps on the podium) audible in the recording.149 Read alongside these poems, “The Twist” asserts the connection between Caribbean and African American music and dance and their shared African heritage. Implicitly through its rock-and-roll lewdness, and explicitly through the stressed end-of-phrase words “belly twist,” the poem recalls Brathwaite’s related defense of the calypso through his assertion that “the alternative tradition is belly-centred: in the beat, the drum, the apparent bawdy.”150 While in his 2004 reading Brathwaite presents “The Twist” as one step in his tracing of rhythmic continuity between African traditions and

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Caribbean popular culture, he elsewhere frames the poem as an expression of the apparent hopelessness of the neocolonial situation. In a reading recorded in Pittsburgh in 1988, Brathwaite locates “The Twist” in the context of the aborted 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and his own return to the Caribbean the following year, to a situation of neocolonial entrapment: “the go-go girls . . . are still trapped in this eternal treadmill . . ., the ghetto becoming a necklace . . . not of beauty, but of a kind of neoslavery.”151 Here “The Twist” highlights how slavery has been exchanged for the neocolonial sex slavery of tourist-fed prostitution. In 2004, by contrast, Brathwaite returns to “The Twist” at the end of his reading, adding a new and seemingly more uplifting final verse: “feel the hunger, feel the passion pull upon your strings, watch her, twist her, love her on a night like this.”152 In these versions of “The Twist” Brathwaite reframes his existing material for two different situations, but he also emphasizes their shared situation of performance. In reprising “The Twist,” Brathwaite underscores his own appearance on stage “on a night like this.” He thereby implicates the listener and the poet in the poem’s mixing of communal rhythms with voyeurism and exploitation: the cruel suffering underlying the smiling face of entertainment for the tourist and, by implication, for the literary armchair traveler to exotic locations. That is, on the one hand, performance offers up a genuine communal situation and so the possibility of “love.” But on the other, performance presents a potentially exploitative situation: either the poet, like “the go-go girls,” metaphorically prostitutes his exotic cultural wares; or like the dancers who “pull upon your strings,” he manipulates his audience. In adding the line “pull upon your strings” to his reprise, Brathwaite suggests the doubled puppetry of neocolonial enslavement and playing the audience. Yet the line also recalls “the rope that loosens the tongue of the steeple” at the end of “Shepherd” and so the hopeful intermingling of African drum and European bell that is echoed punningly in the dancer’s “belly twist.”153 The tension between affirmation and exploitation in these versions of “The Twist” reflects the poem’s versioning of another literary text caught between love and social injustice. The rhyming phrase that opens and concludes the poem, “on a night like this,” recalls the phrase “in such a night as this,” which opens Lorenzo and Jessica’s repartee in act 5 of The Merchant of Venice and provides the refrain that unifies their playful dialogue of competitive versioning. Shakespeare scripts his characters to perform an

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improvised series of sentences, each beginning “in such a night.” Like Nketia’s account of oral literature, Lorenzo and Jessica perform a set form adapted to new situations. Brathwaite’s “The Twist” is a further fusion and adaptation of the repetitive, set forms of the pop song and Shakespearean dialogue. In his 1988 and 2004 readings Brathwaite performs and adapts “The Twist” to emphasize, alternately, neocolonialism and cultural survival, oppression (“try to . . . keep her under”) and love (“love her,” in his 2004 reprise).154 Like “The Twist,” Lorenzo and Jessica’s dialogue opens with rhyming eroticism—“In such a night as this, / When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees”—but is nevertheless shadowed by ethical questions of racial injustice and Jessica’s abandonment of her father, Shylock (“In such a night / Did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew”). In both Brathwaite’s and Shakespeare’s texts, this problem of interpretation (love story or abuse?) is enacted through the iterative structure: in both texts a set form generated by a shared phrase (“on a night like this” and “in such a night as this”) is open to comic and tragic, loving and exploitative versioning. Iteration becomes not just a poetics but also an epistemology—a way of understanding a phrase or act’s multiple valences of love and animus, desire and exploitation, cultural persistence and entrapping repetition. The turns in meaning make “The Twist” a figure for Brathwaite’s iterative poetics—the shifting articulations of each recording continuously reshape earlier recordings and in so doing also make the rhythm of their saying. Building on the model of Masks, Brathwaite develops a poetics that, while drawing on conceptions of oral immediacy, is constitutively mediated through audio and print inscription. It is a poetics in which enunciation comes through iteration, not in spite of it, a poetry in which the drum— the repetition that is rhythm—speaks. ELECTRONIC LECTURE

The tape recorder rendered the oral text multiple and mutable; the photocopier similarly transformed print. The rise of xerography between the mid-1960s and mid-1970s “helped suggest the potential fluidity of print publication—its fixity melted by selection, excerption, collection, versioning, and reproduction.”155 Linking these fluid conceptions of text, Brathwaite added a roughly handwritten cover to the first published version of his “electronic lecture” History of the Voice and reissued it as a

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photocopied pamphlet through his own Savacou press under the title Nation Language Poetry (figure 1.2).156 He thereby augmented his tapeinflected imagining of the fluid, oral “nation language” text through a similarly versioned print form. At the same time, he extended the essay’s postcolonial argument by reclaiming a work initially published by a US academic press. History of the Voice was just one of a number of talks and essays that Brathwaite issued as mimeographed or photocopied Savacou pamphlets during the 1970s and early 1980s.157 First developed through his work on the CAM Newsletter, Brathwaite’s use of mimeographed typescript—and later photocopies—contributed to a practice of print versioning analogous to the dub plate or the tape recorder. The essay in which Brathwaite introduces the concept of “tidalectics,” for example, though better known as “Caribbean Culture: Two Paradigms,” was first published as a photocopied typescript under the title Afternoon of the Status Crow.158 Afternoon of the Status Crow elaborates Brathwaite’s postcolonial Caribbean cultural theory and poetics partly through the “in-process or

FIGURE 1.2. The cover of E. K. Brathwaite, Nation Language Poetry. Handwritten text photocopied onto silver card. Reproduced by permission of Kamau Brathwaite.

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in-progress quality” of the typescript medium.159 The essay uses a new media technology to address how the Caribbean has been fragmented by colonial regimes, whose ongoing influence Brathwaite exemplifies through another media technology: telephone calls between neighboring islands that must be routed through the former imperial metropoles of London and Paris. Brathwaite identifies the cause of this “fragmentation” and a potential cure in the two cultures, European and African, which meet in the Caribbean and are symbolized respectively by the “missile” and the “circle.” He associates the “missile” with European imperialism. By contrast, the “circle” represents both a persistent cultural “core” that survived the extreme pressures of the Middle Passage and an expanding series of concentric circles that allow the “riddims” of tradition to manifest in multifarious ways.160 Each culture relates to a contrasting form of repetition. On the one hand, the pernicious mimicry of European culture—like the repetitive caw of a crow suggested in the punning title—reproduces the status quo of fragmentation in the Caribbean. Hence Brathwaite attributes the Haitian revolutionary Toussaint L’Ouverture’s kidnapping to his “love of Europa,” his wish “to emulate the Other’s Model.” Yet he rejects the view that this was a “final failure,” because that view is based on a dialectic mode of thought in which oscillations must reach an ultimate synthesis: “For dialectics is another gun: a missile: a way of making progress.” Brathwaite contrasts dialectics with the infinite ebb and flow of concentric circles that he terms “tidalectics”: “In the culture of the circle ‘success’ moves outward from the centre to circumference and back again: a tidal dialectic.”161 The iterations of tidalectics are embodied partly by the essay’s deployment of technologies of reproduction. The handwritten corrections and figures contrast with the typewritten text, echoing the distinction between and interplay of missile and circle in the essay. Afternoon of the Status Crow also positions itself as the midpoint in an expanding series of versions, as a reworked transcription of a lecture recorded at the University of Bremen in June 1980, and as a corrected typescript, whose in-process and inrevision feel is enhanced by the photocopy medium and by the multiple locations and dates of the essay given at its conclusion: “Bremen / Kingston 1980 / Bridgetown 1981.”162 This in-process quality undoes the notion of a final version, even as the Jamaican imprint redresses the power imbalance

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in media that would give primacy to the essay’s subsequent formal publication by a European university press. The essay opens with a small example of a similar power imbalance in technological mediation. The speaker attempts to use a projected map (most likely displayed through an overhead or slide projector) to show the audience the islands of the Caribbean: “I looked at your electronic device hoping that the Caribbean might flash upon it: no such luck.”163 By retaining this anecdote in the written text, Brathwaite not only marks the essay’s previous lives as performance, tape recording, and transcription but also indicates his efforts to find in electronic media a way to express the tidalectic alternative to the culture of the missile. While he cannot here find the Caribbean on a screen of projected light, he would soon discover a way of “writin in light” on the computer.164 The tape recorder and photocopier anticipated the fluidity and versioning associated with digital texts. Likewise, by integrating technological mediation and postcolonial theory through repetition, Afternoon of the Status Crow presages Brathwaite’s computer-aided writing in ways that suggest one genealogy for the iterative turn of our digital age. Brathwaite concludes Afternoon of the Status Crow with a version of his poem “Nametracks” (figure 1.3).165 In “Nametracks” Brathwaite adapts the Simon Says game to stage the battle between colonial cultural domination, represented by the refrain “ogrady says,” and the alternative Caribbean voice of “me mudda.”166 The poem serves to illustrate the missile-circle opposition, while also emphasizing the forms of repetition that characterize both positions—both dialectic and tidalectic, both the master forcing the slave to mimic his words and the recalled voice of the mother, who preserves ancestral tradition in spite of ogrady’s attempt to eradicate her and her speech. Repetition adds continuing force to ogrady’s demands but also to the mother’s speech. The repetitions of her speech mark both the stutter-inducing impediments placed on her by ogrady and her ability to adapt and preserve tradition—to shift from “muh” to “mudda” and “name” to “nam,” which Brathwaite defines in the essay as “root or core or spirit.”167 Brathwaite adds another layer of iteration by transforming the graphic representation of the mother’s voice from the version published in Mother Poem (1977), the first part of his second trilogy:

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FIGURE 1.3. Extract from “Nametracks” in E. K. Brathwaite, Afternoon of the Status Crow, 28. Photocopied typescript. Reproduced by permission of Kamau Brathwaite.

but muh muh mud me mudda coo like she coo like she cook an she cumya to me pun de grounn like she lik mih like she lik me wid grease like she grease mih

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she cum to me years like de yess off a leaf an she issper she cum to me years and she purr like a puss and she essssper she lisper to me dat me name what me name dat me name is me main an it am is me own an lion eye mane dat whinner men tek you an ame, dem is nomminit diff’rent an nan so mandingo she yessper you nam168

In his notes to Mother Poem Brathwaite characterizes “nam” as “the heart of our nation-language” and opposes it to the “cultural imperial authority of Prospero (O’Grady).”169 In Afternoon of the Status Crow, he extends the Tempest analogy, citing Caliban’s “dark mojer Sycorax. She doesn’t appear in the play—and again the playwright is so right—the woman is invisible. SHE IS A SUBMERGED MOTHER.”170 By cutting out the line breaks from the Mother Poem version (or rather, replacing each with a solidus), Brathwaite renders the speech of this invisible mother visible on the page. He contrasts the broken lines and fragmentation of the missile culture of “ogrady” with the mother language or “nation language” of the underlined block quotation and the set-off “nam.” Brathwaite thereby prefigures the Sycorax video-style that he developed from the mid-1980s with the aid of an Apple Macintosh computer and that he would later use to produce yet further versions of “Nametracks” (e.g., figure 1.4). The wholeness of the mother’s block of language, whose continuity and unity are further emphasized by underlining, is visually contrasted to the “fragments” of ogrady’s lines, as Brathwaite explains in introducing the quotation: on the one hand: fragmentation: on the other: notion of these fragments capable of becoming whole171

The set-off underlined word “whole” mirrors the word “nam” that concludes the poem and the essay, emphasizing “how circle culture travels keeps miraculous intact despite the intense outside / heat / of the oppressor.”172

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FIGURE 1.4. Extract from “Nametracks” in E. K. Brathwaite, Barabajan Poems, 261. Reproduced by permission of Kamau Brathwaite.

In the poem and the essay, Brathwaite presents the African core that is nam as essential and impermeable to change and yet endlessly repeated and recontextualized. His essay conducts an interlingual play on the word with bewildering geographical and linguistic shifts: “name . . . nam / . . . Surinam / . . . Vietnam / Namibia . . . / so / yam / anamse / tutankhaman / so / tom / so / atom / dynamo.”173 Like the skipping stone in “Calypso,” the unbreakable cultural core exists only through the ripples that it leaves; it exists only as a form of iteration. The concentric circles of tidalectics offer a way to encompass both mutability and essential core. Brent Edwards describes this “changing core of resiliency and singularity” as a quality of the black diaspora that finds a correlative in “a poetic mode (anaphora) of articulating difference through determinate negation,” a mode he finds in the stuttering “it is not” of Brathwaite’s “Negus.”174 In Afternoon of the Status Crow Brathwaite represents the seeming contradiction of an essential core that is ever changing through a different iterative strategy. He depicts nam’s cultural resilience and ever-changing form through reiterations across media. Brathwaite’s attention to the shape of words on the page reflects his attempt, as he puts it, to make the essay “an ikon cymbal symbol beyond sentences.”175 To embody the “circle culture,” Brathwaite interposes his typescript with a roughly drawn series of circles as an iconic representation

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of tidalectic movement (figure 1.5). The shift from typescript to a picture or icon is an attempt to reach beyond words, to make the submerged culture of the circle visible. Yet like the concept it describes, the image provides not an ultimate vision of tidalectic movement but one instantiation. The essay embodies the concept of tidalectics not through text or image but through the reiterations within and between these media that produce the “whole energy of words we call an essay.”176 Extending “beyond sentences,” Afternoon of the Status Crow enacts tidalectic movement through intermediation. It makes ripples of difference in media: between spoken word, recording, transcription, typescript, drawing, and photocopy. Brathwaite depicts Caribbean culture through the interplay of sameness and difference produced as words and signs are repeated and transformed from place to place, time to time, and medium to medium. Remediation becomes a model for cultural “resiliency and singularity,” and conversely the iterative form of cultural persistence with difference offers a way to understand the difference that each medium makes. As Afternoon of the Status Crow evinces, Brathwaite’s iterative poetics of diasporic and postcolonial culture is equally a poetics of media. “Nametracks” illuminates the stakes of Brathwaite’s developing emphasis on reiterations of his own work: these reiterations are—as the selfpublished Savacou pamphlet Afternoon of the Status Crow suggests—also about the battle for control over one’s own words and their reproduction, about freeing the language of Sycorax from ogrady and Prospero. Even as

FIGURE 1.5. Detail from E. K. Brathwaite, Afternoon of the Status Crow, 24. Photocopied typescript with hand-drawn annotations and illustration. Reproduced by permission of Kamau Brathwaite.

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these repetitions address the authority of speech, they also put pressure on the notion of Brathwaite’s individual authorship. Seen in this light, the earlier tape-based remixing of others’ words in his 1968 book Masks illustrates the postcolonial implications of what Michel Foucault, in a lecture given the following year, characterized as “one of the fundamental ethical principles of contemporary writing.”177 The poet becomes not the originator but the remixer of words, texts, and traditions. The iterative turn here marks a shift away from the inviolate work and the conventional author function and toward a continuously shifting series of texts whose collective reiteration affirms an alternative to the European tradition. Hence Brathwaite repeats and adapts “Nametracks” in numerous performances and recordings. The poem, as we have seen, appears in dramatically different versions in Mother Poem, Afternoon of the Status Crow, and in the computer-generated Sycorax video-style of Barabajan Poems (figures  1.3 and 1.5).178 Brathwaite’s Sycorax style can be understood as drawing on and extending the relative informality and autonomy already explored in his experimentations with tape, typescript, and photocopy. Not only does Brathwaite’s reconstitution of the layout of “Nametracks” in Afternoon of the Status Crow anticipate his Sycorax video-style; it also stages the SycoraxProspero, African-European opposition and interplay through which he frames his use of the computer in his programmatic poem “Letter Sycorax” (1986). In “Letter Sycorax” Caliban deploys the computer keyboard to write to his mother and against European domination. Similarly, Brathwaite’s iterative practice as a whole can be understood as a search for postcolonial media. Brathwaite’s use of word-processing software to engineer more graphically varied versions of his poems arguably culminates in Ancestors (2001), a reworking of his entire second trilogy, including “Nametracks.” Ancestors, with its wholesale reproduction of earlier work, transformed through digital manipulation and interpolated with appropriated textual material such as newspaper articles and transcriptions from radio, clearly exemplifies the techniques and methods that characterize the iterative turn. Like the Jamaican sound engineers who transformed the face of popular music, Brathwaite found a new audience for his iterative techniques when he moved to New York City in the early 1990s. He thereby extended his earlier influence on the development of Caribbean performance and dub poetics, becoming a key reference point for poets working within Anglo-American experimental

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circuits. Brathwaite offered one model for multimedia iterative practices that engaged questions of language and authority, inspiring, for example, Caroline Bergvall’s Say: “Parsley,” whose exploration of shibboleths reiterates the play on the Simon Says game in Brathwaite’s “Nametracks.” Brathwaite’s practice illuminates how the wider turn to iteration in contemporary culture grows out of new media technologies that range from tape recording and radio to the photocopier and the personal computer. His practice also illustrates the close connection between the affordances of technologies of sonic and textual reproduction and the search for a postcolonial poetics. His fusion of audio recording technologies, the computer, and the problem of finding a way out of the prison of global English lays the groundwork for the later rise of iterative poetics as a response to digital technology and the post–Cold War wave of globalization. Before turning to this more recent moment, I want to examine another largely ignored genealogy for iterative poetics. Just as the contestation of colonial authority shaped the engagement with new media in what became known (in true neocolonial style) as the Third World, so too in the Second World, explorations of media reproduction and authority went hand in hand with the rise of a poetics of iteration. The next chapter in the history of the iterative turn belongs, therefore, to the cultural poetics of samizdat.

Chapter Two

THE ART OF SAMIZDAT Dmitri Prigov, Moscow Conceptualism, and the Carbon-Copy Origins of New Media Poetics

Как всякое воспроизведение, оно обречено нести на себе черты неизгладимой вторичности, узнаваемости художественного промысла. А хочется! Like any reproduction, it is fated to carry within itself the marks of indelible secondariness, the recognizability of its artistic craft. And I want it like that! — DMITRI PRIGOV, INTRODUCTION TO “DVA RASSKAZA”

The work describes and depicts a stone dropped into a pool. Five carbon copies—each with a circle of increasing diameter cut out—overlay the original typescript sheet. When the reader opens the book, the original is visible only through the smallest hole at the center—the point in the text where the stone hits the water. This small aperture of clarity is surrounded by circles of increasingly blurred carbon copies and framed by the nearly illegible fifth copy. As the reader turns the pages, the smudged carbon-copied letters gradually come into focus, as though the ripples on the surface have subsided, allowing the letters below to show through. In Eighteenth Alphabet: Stone and Circles on Water (Vosemnadtsataia azbuka: Kamen' i krugi na vode; figure 2.1), Dmitri Prigov deploys the samizdat means of reproduction—the typescript and carbon copy—as his mode of production. Kamau Brathwaite’s skipping stone described the geography of the Caribbean through rhythmic repetitions that mimicked the technologies of audio recording. Prigov’s Stone and Circles on Water uses the technology of samizdat—typewriter and carbon paper—to make watery ripples out of mechanically reproduced letters. Samizdat was a response to the restricted access to formal means of publication (official publishing houses) and to technologies of reproduction (printing presses and later photocopiers) in the Soviet Union. Instead, samizdat writers such as Prigov turned to the available technologies of

FIGURES 2.1A, 2.1B. Two pages from Dmitrii Prigov, Vosemnadtsataia azbuka: Kamen' i krugi na vode [Eighteenth alphabet: Stone and circles on water], samizdat artist’s book (Moscow, 1985). Paper, typewriting, carbon-copy typewriting, circular cuts. Image courtesy of the Centre for Artists’ Publications, Weserburg Museum of Modern Art, Bremen, Germany. Photo by Bettina Brach. Reproduced by permission of the estate of Dmitrii Prigov.

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typewriter and carbon paper. A Russian neologism meaning, literally, “selfpublishing,” the term samizdat entered into widespread usage in the late 1960s and early 1970s, just as Prigov was beginning his career. Increasingly regular and widely distributed samizdat publications led to official identification of samizdat as a threat and to recognition and support from the West, so that samizdat became not just an ad hoc practice but a  cultural and political phenomenon of national and international significance.1 Though the typescript was at the heart of the samizdat phenomenon, samizdat can also be conceived more broadly as a multimedia practice of unofficial homemade publication, especially as produced under conditions of censorship.2 So conceived, samizdat would also encompass magnitizdat, a term coined by analogy with typescript samizdat to describe the informal recording, rerecording, and circulation of tapes that accompanied the rapid rise in the availability of tape recording technology in the Soviet Union in the 1960s.3 In the broadest sense, samizdat was a particular historically and culturally inflected example of the same phenomenon that gave rise to Brathwaite’s iterative poetics: the development in the 1960s and 1970s of new “grassroots media” enabled by new read-write technologies, which in turn helped propel a new sense of the fluidity of the text.4 “Cassette culture,” for example, was a phenomenon that united both market and communist economies in the 1970s and 1980s, and samizdat publication, like the rise of xerography elsewhere during this period, led to an increasing sense of the print text as a potentially endless series of versions.5 As with Brathwaite’s work, in Soviet samizdat the textual fluidity suggested by audio recording matched the textual fluidity produced by typescript reproduction, which was also frequently imagined as a form of orality.6 Like the technologies in Brathwaite’s practice, samizdat allowed artistic production and reproduction, writing and reading, to intersect and even merge in new ways. Samizdat intertwined production and consumption with reproduction. A writer would publish a work by typing several carbon copies, and further copies would be made when readers chose to retype the text. Since the retyped texts changed subtly and sometimes dramatically from copy to copy, samizdat involved an inherent tension between mechanical reproduction and the uniqueness of each instantiation. In Stone and Circles on Water Prigov makes the uniqueness of each reproduction an essential element of the work, suggesting how what might

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be considered the “noise” of reproduction became integral to samizdat aesthetics.7 Samizdat culture’s emphasis on the aesthetics of homemade reproductions is particularly obvious in magnitizdat, the medium of the so-called bards or guitar poets, whose recordings were prized and reproduced in the millions not in spite of but arguably because of the “background noises,” static hiss, and “breathy voice and slightly out-of-tune guitar” sounds that characterized these reproductions.8 Despite their apparently very different aesthetics, Prigov’s own idiosyncratic poetic performances extend the estranging effect of the intonational style and noise of guitar poets like Alexander Galich.9 In Stone and Circles on Water Prigov highlights parallel aesthetic possibilities for the blurred carbon copies of samizdat print reproduction. Stone and Circles on Water suggests how samizdat, like postcolonial media, produced an iterative turn. It emphasizes the samizdat mode of small-scale, multicopy reproduction thematically and is also constituted by overlaid iterations of a single text. Carbon-copy reproduction necessitates thin paper, which here allows the overlaid layers to show through each other. This adds to the smudged appearance and so to the illusion of the blurring produced by a ripple passing over formerly smooth water. The first and final lines of the typescript text describe “circles on water” (“krugi na vode”). These lines frame the central description of a stone “lifted above the land” (“nad zemleiu podniatyi”) and “flying” (“letiashchii”) through the air, “touching” (“kosnuvshis' ”) and descending through the water to the bottom before “looking up” (“vverkh smotriashchi”) at the circles of water above. Paralleling the description of the water’s surface from above and below, the words show through the back of each fine leaf of the partially translucent samizdat typescript. As readers descend through the text by turning the pages, they are able to look back to the layers of text viewed from beneath. Just as the text describes the circles on water as seen from above and below, the phrase “circles on water” frames the text at the top and bottom of the typescript page, and the reader can view the text as a whole inversely from the first and final pages of the book.10 By the time Prigov produced Stone and Circles on Water in 1985, samizdat was not only a widespread material fact but also a cultural institution that had given rise to many journals, social and cultural groupings, and even a literary prize. Prigov’s text provides a visualization of the social relationships that built samizdat culture. The carbon copies furnish the

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increasingly faint ripples that move outward from the stone’s—and metaphorically, the work’s—point of impact. The ripples offer a metaphor for the expanding circle of readers or viewers that a samizdat text reached as it was reproduced. Samizdat reproduction relied on individual readers selecting a copy to retype: “With papyrus paper and carbons and strong fingers one might get up to seven or eight copies, but the final copy would hardly be legible,” as the blurred fifth carbon copy of Stone and Circles on Water illustrates.11 Stone and Circles on Water implies the way that samizdat texts, often produced for a small inner circle of associates, would filter outward to a wider audience, as readers became publishers, retyping and redistributing the text, five or six copies at a time. The work depicts how the “mechanics of circulation and reproduction for further circulation of samizdat typescript copies implied a new and historically specific relationship of cooperation among readers and authors.”12 It also suggests how samizdat circulation and reproduction furnished a model for iterative poetics. Stone and Circles on Water embodies what I term the samizdat principle of iteration. Whereas Brathwaite deployed the poetics of iteration to address questions of postcolonial and media authority, Prigov’s iterative practice developed as an engagement with the problem of authority in late Soviet and post-Soviet culture and its intertwinement with media authority. An “essential quality of samizdat” is “its exemplification of epistemic instability, inasmuch as samizdat texts are not automatically invested with authority” but depend on reader-copyists to circulate.13 Prigov used the epistemic instability of samizdat to engage the larger instability in political authority and media certainties in the late Soviet period. The institutions of samizdat developed alongside conceptual art and writing in Russia in the 1970s and 1980s. These temporally coincident iterative practices might at first glance seem to offer diametrically opposed approaches to the copy. Whereas Russian conceptualists such as Prigov frequently used copying as a tool of irony and critique, the practice of samizdat publication typically embodied a hopeful belief in the power of the copied word. Prigov’s parodic rewritings of classic Russian poems, for example, seem to mock the quasi-religious belief in the words of poets such as Osip Mandelstam, whose reproduced texts were fetishized in samizdat culture.14 As Stone and Circles on Water emphasizes, however, the samizdat principle brought together these seemingly opposed approaches to the copy,

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fusing mechanical reproduction and cultural repetition with the singularity of the poetic utterance. Stone and Circles on Water alludes to the central role of the word kamen' (stone) in Mandelstam’s oeuvre. Beginning with his first collection, Kamen' (Stone, 1913), the word became a “major item in his lexicon, an emblem of the poet’s identity.”15 Prigov’s stone cast into a pool of water recalls in particular several early texts in which Mandelstam presents the falling stone—an image he copies from a poem by Fedor Tyutchev—as a figure for the poetic word.16 In the ripples of its repetitions, Stone and Circles on Water figures the reverberations of Mandelstam’s book—which itself exists in several significantly different iterations—and, simultaneously, the acts of copying that enabled his words to live on. Stone and Circles on Water comments on the material conditions and cultural fetishization of samizdat even as it partakes of and extends both elements of samizdat culture. It both obeys and playfully parodies the cultural system of samizdat. Samizdat furnished conceptual artists like Prigov with a way to think agency within system and improvisation within copying, enabling them to question both the cultural dominance of Western art and the ideological systems of official and unofficial late Soviet culture. Samizdat also allowed conceptualists such as Prigov to reimagine the relationship between textual and visual art. By deploying the “extra-Gutenberg” medium of samizdat, Stone and Circles on Water, for example, anticipates the iterative turn of postmedium art and its engagement with postprint media.17 The iterative poetics of samizdat thus prepares the way for the further unraveling of the certainties of print culture, the Soviet system, and Cold War oppositions in what Prigov termed the “insane expansion of media” in the postSoviet era.18 THE SAMIZDAT PRINCIPLE

Stone and Circles on Water builds on the technique of cutout concentric circles that Prigov experimented with in earlier works such as Deletion and Growth (Udalenie i narastanie, 1977; figure 2.2). Deletion and Growth is a book with circles of increasing size cut out of each page. Each cutout circle is labeled “it is deleted” in typescript on the verso. The book ends in a black page so that the deletions produce black circles of increasing size on the recto, each of which is labeled “it grows.” This earlier work explores the interplay of expansion and elimination in repetition. Stone and Circles on

FIGURES 2.2A, 2.2B. Two pages from Dmitrii Prigov, Udalenie i narastanie [Deletion and growth], samizdat artist’s book (Moscow, 1977). White and black paper, typewriting, circular cuts. 19.2 x 13.1 cm (closed). MANI (Moscow Archive of New Art) folio 2 (June 1981), envelope 33. Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union, MANI 2.02.33.04, Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. Photo by Peter Jacobs. Reproduced by permission of the estate of Dmitrii Prigov.

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Water produces a similar interplay between growth and deletion: between, on the one hand, the expanding circle of samizdat copies and readers and, on the other, the deletion of the cutout and the near illegibility of the last carbon copy. Prigov’s Deletion and Growth forms part of his series of small-scale A5 samizdat books that he collectively termed his Mini-buksy series and that he explicitly presented as an engagement with the cultural logic of samizdat. In 1981, Prigov included Deletion and Growth as a work exemplary of his Mini-buksy series in his contribution to the second number of the Moscow Archive for New Art (MANI), a series of folios (papki) comprising works from artists in the Moscow conceptualist circle. In the introduction that he wrote in anticipation of publication in the 1979 first issue of the émigré art journal A-Ya, Prigov had already presented his Mini-buksy series explicitly as an investigation of the medium and culture of samizdat. Introducing the series to a Western audience, Prigov writes of how “samizdat culture” was for some time not conscious of itself as a “cultural phenomenon.” Instead “retyping on a typewriter was seen as an intermediary stage before possible (though far from always realized) print publication. However, the sufficiently extended and intensive everydayness of samizdat literature has given birth to its own culture and perceptions, to reactions to the typescript text as an independent form, separate from printed production.”19 In his introduction to his Mini-buksy in MANI 2, Prigov explains how each work deploys a different principle of production, including the “multiplication principle,” the “principle of textual growth,” the “constructive principle,” the “imitative principle,” and the “anecdotal principle” (siuzhetnyi printsip).20 All principles emphasize reproduction as a means of production. In other words, they stress the samizdat principle: the fusing, as in Stone and Circles on Water, of artistic creation with acts of copying and mechanical reproduction. The constructive principle, for example, involves self-reflexive comment on the book form. Prigov cites the example of his Impossible Book (Nevozmozhnaia kniga), which includes one phrase per page: “Don’t turn the page / don’t turn the page / don’t turn the page / don’t close the book.”21 If The Impossible Book and Deletion and Growth highlight samizdat’s material form, then the imitative and anecdotal principles illustrate its cultural logic. Prigov’s examples of the imitative principle involve the

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reproduction of Soviet bureaucratic genres, such as a savings book and employment record book (trudovaia knizhka), in samizdat form. Prigov’s example of the anecdotal principle is Poet’s Draft (Chernovik poeta), which comprises multiple typescript copies of the opening line of Alexander Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin with handwritten corrections, such as those frequently found in samizdat texts. In these two examples, Prigov deployed the copy logic of samizdat to introduce official Soviet forms and officially sanctioned and celebrated texts into a constitutively unofficial medium. By extending the samizdat principle of retyping ad absurdum, he highlighted samizdat’s frequent but largely unacknowledged mimicry of official Soviet culture, so undermining a foundational myth of samizdat: its absolute difference from official culture.22 We might define the samizdat principle as the intersection of mechanical reproduction and cultural repetition with the aesthetics of the singular work of art. Out of this tension, the samizdat principle is also extendable to the recognition of various systems—ideological, discursive, technological—that operate through forms of repetition but that nevertheless provide means for play and improvisation. Similar modes of thought have a long history in Russian literary and cultural theory: from the Russian formalists’ emphasis on the play of devices, to Mikhail Bakhtin’s conception of the “re-accentuation” of speech genres, to the cultural semiotics of Yuri Lotman and the Tartu circle, who inherited and adapted these earlier theories in ways that were powerfully influential on the unofficial Russian artistic and literary scenes of the 1970s.23 Emerging out of this intellectual milieu, Prigov’s practice and Moscow conceptualism as a whole frequently depend on the iterative poetics of samizdat. In Prigov’s work, apparently distinct techniques—the use of found material, serial forms, working between media, and the highlighting of methods of reproduction—in fact constitute a unified iterative approach derived from the samizdat principle. On the one hand, Prigov uses existing texts (e.g., Eugene Onegin) and text types (such as Soviet ideological discourse) and re-presents the material according to regularized deforming structures (including systematic word substitution, unusual vocal performance, and changes to visual appearance and layout). On the other hand, Prigov employs serial forms that accommodate diverse textual content, as in his Alphabets (Azbuki) series of works united by their а to я Cyrillic alphabetical organization, of which Stone and Circles on Water is

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an example. As he explains in his account of the Mini-buksy, Prigov’s work is built around samizdat principles of repetition at the level of text and form. Prigov unites his repetitions of texts and forms with iterations across media—from samizdat, to printed book, to performance. Each work embodies a unique intersection of these iterative vectors, so conforming to the samizdat principle that each reproduction is, equally, a singular instantiation. In his introduction to his contribution to MANI 2, Prigov outlines this strategy of intersection by explaining that the “texts” he has chosen are distinct from his “poetry” and “graphic work”: “texts in part intersect with poems and with graphics,” whereas “poems and graphics live at a mutually respectful distance.”24 In other words, Prigov’s texts, such as Stone and Circles on Water, depend on both their words and materialization: a samizdat text is both words to be read and a treasured cultural and material object constituted by its reproduction. In presenting his “texts” as both graphic and poetic, Prigov also links the samizdat principle to the intersection of art forms and media that underlies his work. Throughout his career, Prigov repeatedly used the term “peresechenie” (intersection) to describe his practice of combining diverse discourses, genres, and media and allowing them to articulate in new ways.25 Stone and Circles on Water embodies this device of intersection and connects it to samizdat. The work reiterates its description in linguistic and visual media. The stone’s trajectory is described by the vertical movement of the text down the page from a to я, from the first to the last letter of the Russian alphabet. The stone strikes the face of the water in the center before touching the bottom, a downward movement emphasized by the columns of alphabetically ordered initial letters and the word “eto” (it is) that follows in most lines. These regular columns are themselves a result of the typescript medium: unlike a standard word-processed or typeset text, the typewriter has zero kerning, which means that each letter receives the same interval of space on the page.26 At the same time, the visual presentation describes the resultant movement of the water outward from the point where the stone strikes. The work gains power from the conjunction of its verbal and visual repetitions—at the point where the vertical axis of the text and the outward and circular axis of its graphic appeal intersect. The moment of the stone’s impact becomes a metaphor for such intersections, a unique instant in time frozen between repeating movements and between

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the two-dimensional image and three-dimensional sculpture produced through the samizdat book. Stone and Circles on Water also lies at the intersection of Prigov’s Alphabets series and his explorations of the samizdat book as material object in his Mini-buksy series, extending in particular the circular cutouts of Deletion and Growth.27 Similarly, Poet’s Draft extends Prigov’s developing practice of producing works from reiterations of Russian classics, especially the opening lines of Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin.28 Poet’s Draft comprises typewritten repetitions of the opening line with handwritten restorations of the opening word “Moi” (My), and with various other possessive pronouns, including “Ego” (His), “Tvoi” (Your), and “Nash” (Our) struck out. The work includes only one line per page until the final page, in which the first line is repeated twenty-seven times with handwritten corrections of the occasional possessive pronoun (figure 2.3). Prigov deploys the samizdat principle of repetition and variation in many other works; for instance, in Seventh Alphabet (Using the Prigov-Monastyrskii Method) (Sed'maia azbuka [po metodu Prigova-Monastyrskogo], 1984), in which he repeats the first line of Eugene Onegin with either all the consonants or all the vowels changing each time to reflect the letter of the alphabet, producing an a to z—or in Russian а to я—of variations (figure 2.4). The intersection of the Alphabet and Onegin series in the Seventh Alphabet highlights the iterative modes of both series through its strict rules of repetition and variation. On the one hand, the Seventh Alphabet suggests that the opening line of Eugene Onegin contains an a to z of Russian literature that is complete in itself, alluding to the work’s unrivaled position in Russian culture and Vissarion Belinsky’s famous description of the work as “an encyclopedia of Russian life.”29 On the other hand, the arbitrarily applied rules of alphabetical order distort this sacred text of Russian literature and suggest that it too is merely a collection of ordered letters. Like Poet’s Draft and Stone and Circles on Water, the Seventh Alphabet also produces visually arresting columns running down the page—an effect that again depends on the zero kerning of the typescript medium. In the Seventh Alphabet Prigov not only reiterates Pushkin’s text and his own serial alphabet form but, as in Stone and Circles on Water, blends verbal and visual media, moving the text toward the status of a concrete poem. The poem’s strange misspellings also produce a sound poem—heard in the “Вой” (Howl) in line 3—that invites further iteration, using Prigov’s skills as a performer.

FIGURES 2.3A, 2.3B. Two pages from Dmitrii Prigov, Chernovik poeta [Poet’s draft]. Paper, typewriting, pen. 19.1 x 13.9 cm (closed). MANI (Moscow Archive of New Art) folio 2 (June 1981), envelope 33. Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union, MANI 2.02.33.02, Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. Photo by Peter Jacobs. Reproduced by permission of the estate of Dmitrii Prigov.

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FIGURE 2.4. From Dmitrii Prigov, Sed'maia azbuka (po metodu Prigova-Monastyrskogo) [Seventh alphabet (using the Prigov-Monastyrskii method)], samizdat publication (Moscow, 1984). Typewritten text on paper. 15 x 10 cm. A-Ya Archive, Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union, CAT- 071.001.002, Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. Photo by Peter Jacobs. Reproduced by permission of the estate of Dmitrii Prigov.

Prigov copies parts of Pushkin’s masterpiece (most often the opening line or stanza) in a wide range of work across visual, performance, and textual media. He repeats Eugene Onegin, for instance, in the landscape-format samizdat book Oblong Collection (Prodolgovatyi sbornik);30 in a paperboard sculptural work that takes the shape of what Prigov terms a vint (screw);31 in his “Verses for George” (“Stikhi dlia Dzhordzhika”), in which protagonists from the opening lines of famous Russian poems are replaced by the word dinozavr (dinosaur);32 in his signature performance piece “Mantra of Russian High Culture” (“Mantra vysokoi russkoi kul'tury”);33 and in an elliptical rendition of the opening line of Pushkin’s poem as a telegram.34 Each of these works highlights its status as an iteration, since it would inevitably be read by Prigov’s Russian audience as an echo of Pushkin’s text. Each work also employs a serial iterative form. In the Oblong Collection

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Prigov cites Eugene Onegin in the last in a series of pieces in which appropriated words from various authors break down into isolated letters.35 Prigov’s screw poems share a repeated sculptural form, though only one uses text from Eugene Onegin.36 In “Verses for George” Prigov begins with the opening lines of Eugene Onegin but also inserts a dinosaur into other canonical Russian lyrics.37 In “Mantra of Russian High Culture” Prigov recites the opening lines of Eugene Onegin in a series of vocal styles. Moreover, each vocal style itself exists in as many variations as Prigov gave performances, some of which are preserved in the multiple extant recordings of the piece. In all these works Prigov extends the samizdat principle of textual and material reproduction by highlighting both serial and citational vectors of iteration, which then intersect across multiple media. Prigov’s Onegin telegram is also one of a series, several of which he includes in his 1981 MANI 2 selection. Prigov’s Telegrams take the condensation that sometimes occurred in samizdat retyping to absurdist extremes, as in the MANI telegrams attributed to Pushkin (“UNCLE COMMA SICK STOP”) and Fyodor Dostoevsky: “STUDENT COMMA KILLED OLD WOMAN COMMA WITH AXE COMMA ANGUISHES TERRIBLY STOP” (figure 2.5). Prigov’s MANI selection also includes a piece attributed to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (“EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT COMMA CRISIS COMMA . . . STOP TRAGIC FINALE STOP”). In his Telegrams Prigov satirizes modernism’s overturning of the nineteenth-century classics through an insistence on telegraphic compression, while also connecting these Russian classics to the ideology of the Soviet state as represented by the officially regulated medium of the telegram. Yet by uniting an official medium and officially sanctioned great artists with the unofficial medium of typescript pasted onto art-quality paper, Prigov also targets the cultural mythologies of the samizdat text. According to these myths of samizdat, each “fragile” scrap of semilegible, laboriously copied typescript contained “precious content,” treasured words of repressed expression.38 Prigov’s choice of materials to include in the MANI archive engages the samizdat principle underlying both his iterative practice and the cultural institutions of unofficial Russian art. The archive itself was developed according to the samizdat principle of small-scale copying. Initiated in 1980, the MANI project sought to collect works by artists associated with the Moscow conceptualist circle. Each of the first five folios comprised five copies, with the work of each artist or group presented in its own envelope.39

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FIGURE 2.5. Dmitrii Prigov, “Student zpt ubil starukhu zpt . . .” [Student comma murdered old woman comma . . .]. Page from the series Telegrammy [Telegrams] (Moscow, 1981). Typewriting on cartridge paper, collaged on paper. 21.1 x 15 cm (closed), 21.1 x 30.3 cm (open). MANI (Moscow Archive of New Art) folio 2 (June 1981), envelope 33. Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union, MANI 2.02.33.07, Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. Photo by Peter Jacobs. Reproduced by permission of the estate of Dmitrii Prigov.

The five copies echoed the process of samizdat retyping, which would typically produce a similar number of copies. And the project also chimes with the emphasis on documentation and archiving within samizdat culture and among the Moscow conceptualists. For instance, the Collective Actions (Kollektivnye deistviia) group, in which Prigov and many other leading conceptualists participated, created audio, photographic, film, and textual documentation of their actions, examples of which are included in MANI 2.40 Other contributions to MANI also comment on its institutional and media structure. Lev Rubinstein adopted the envelope form, used to order the MANI archive, as the organizing principle of his work The Author Proposes to Meet (Avtor predlagaet sobirat'sia), which comprises a series of envelopes containing typed and signed letters from the author (figure  2.6). Alexander Yulikov’s contribution to MANI 3 (December  1981)

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also exemplifies the samizdat logic of textual copying and the intersection of verbal and visual media. His contribution comprises a series of images that resemble Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square but which are in fact composed entirely of his tiny handwritten copying of a sacred text of samizdat culture: Mandelstam’s poems.41 Adding a further layer of copying, the images, as they appear in MANI under the collective title Illustrations to the Poems of Osip Mandelstam (Illiustratsii k stikham Osipa Mandel'shtama), are themselves photographic reproductions of ink drawings such as his Poems of Osip Mandelstam II (Stikhi Osipa Mandel'shtama II; figure 2.7). Prigov also contributed work to MANI that commented on the cultural and material conditions of the archive. In his typescript introduction he explains that he chose to include texts because of the problem of reproducing his visual works. Instead, the works he includes are both originals and copies made according to the samizdat principle of retyping. Photography threatens to make his graphic works feel like “finished things,” rather than “assembled pages of paper,” whereas the texts “are how they are.” 42 Also commenting on the materiality of the samizdat typescript in the same MANI folio, Yuri Albert included a photograph of a typescript text that reads, “Did the meaning of this work change after it was photographed?” (figure 2.8). Through the samizdat principle, writers and artists interrogated not only the material and cultural conditions of samizdat but also the power dynamics of the global cultural field. Prigov’s contribution to MANI 2 begins with an essay that engages the differences between Russian and Western art by describing “pop art” as “regional” art because it is “not understandable outside its place and means of coming into existence.”43 Taken together, Prigov’s framings of his work in MANI 2 seek to undermine the dominance of contemporary Western art by regionalizing it. Prigov thereby also asserts the equal importance of local context to the practices of Moscow conceptualism and, in particular, to his explorations of samizdat. The samizdat principle allows Prigov to undermine the idea that Russian conceptual art is merely a local variation of a dominant model emanating from Western cultural centers. Instead, the samizdat principle makes the reproductive strategies of Western art as regional as any other. In this way, samizdat opens up the meaning of repetition in contemporary art: “For us,” Prigov writes, “practically without a culture of the object, the fabricated quality of pop art becomes a different sign, whereas in the American sphere of the

FIGURES 2.6A, 2.6B. Lev Rubinshtein, from the series Avtor predlagaet sobirat'sia [The author proposes to meet]. Envelope and A4 paper and pen on paper. 17.3 x 13.6 cm (envelope); 29.7 x 21 cm (sheet). MANI (Moscow Archive of New Art) folio 2 (June 1981), envelope 34. Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union, MANI 2.02.34.02.04 and MANI 2.02.34.02.04a, Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. Photo by Peter Jacobs. Reproduced by permission of Lev Rubinshtein.

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FIGURE 2.7. Aleksandr Iulikov, Stikhi Osipa Mandel'shtama II [Poems of Osip Mandelstam II], 1979. Ink and graphite. 48 x 48 cm (image); 73.5 x 74 cm (sheet). Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union, D18462.002, Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. Photo by Peter Jacobs. Reproduced by permission of Aleksandr Iulikov.

industrial culture of the object, it is not a sign of difference, but the opposite—an empty sign.” 44 In other words, the samizdat principle shows us another way of reading the cultural significance of repetition. Copying becomes not a sign of subordination to the Western model but a means of recognizing how a work of art changes with each reproduction and with each new context. While Prigov’s stress on the difference between pop art and the sots art founded by Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid repeats what is now a commonplace distinction, the samizdat principle actually draws into question this distinction and, with it, existing accounts of Moscow conceptualism.45 Matthew Jackson’s book on Moscow conceptualism, for example, repeats the usual emphasis on the differences between Western and Russian conceptualism and their source in the contrast between

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FIGURE 2.8. Iurii Al'bert, Izmenilsia li smysl etoi raboty posle togo, kak ona byla sfotografirovana? [Did the meaning of this work change after it was photographed?], October 18, 1981. Photograph. 32.9 x 23.2 cm (sheet). MANI (Moscow Archive of New Art) folio 3 (December 1981), envelope 2. Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union, MANI 3.01.02.02, Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. Photo by Peter Jacobs. Reproduced by permission of Iurii Al’bert.

Western consumerism and Soviet ideology, Western commodities and Russian ideas, and “invasive mental Taylorization” and “state-sponsored surrealism.” By contrast, Prigov’s focus on the material qualities and institution of samizdat culture points to forms of conceptualism in Russia that were just as concerned with “distribution networks, institutional frames, and professional expectations of the international art world” as Western conceptual artists such as the Art and Language group.46 Through the samizdat principle, Moscow and Western conceptualism can be reconceived as sharing common iterative practices and institutional engagements despite their very different contexts. Prigov introduced the Mini-buksy that he sent abroad for the first issue of A-Ya as embedded in the context of samizdat culture: “Ideally, they should be reproduced only in a way that copies all the specifics of a typed text.”

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Hence “the mini-buksy must not be produced in a different form.” 47 Here Prigov makes the case for the samizdat work of art as a regional art like pop art that is “not understandable outside its place and means of coming into existence.” This comment is also specifically institutional. Prigov’s instructions rendered publication abroad strictly impossible. While the reproduction of his works in the West—in A-Ya and in his book of visual typescript poems Versographies (Stikhogrammy)—preserved elements of the original form, they were mediated by photography and print publication. These publications support the notion that samizdat was only a step on the way to proper publication—the very idea that Prigov sought to undermine. By insisting that his works should only be reproduced through the technologies of samizdat, Prigov emphasized their social and cultural context. Yet through that insistence on context, Prigov also asserted the contexttranscending significance of the samizdat principle: its wedding of the singularly inimitable with the endlessly reproducible. The samizdat principle redefined copying as the general condition of contemporary culture and not as an indication of secondariness vis-à-vis the West. Western publication, symbolic capital, and cultural authority could now be seen as mere pale imitations of samizdat’s master copy. INSANELY EXPANDING MEDIA

In the same year that he produced Stone and Circles on Water, Prigov attended a multimedia performance event by the group Collective Actions. Presented on May 31, 1985, the event, entitled Barrel (Bochka), comprised a slide show (including documentation images from earlier actions) and an audio recording. Barrel took place in the studio apartment of Igor Makarevich and concluded with a taped discussion.48 As part of the action, the display of 110 black-and-white slides on one of three screens was accompanied by an audio recording entitled “Repetitions.” The recording was composed of the partial or total repetition of the following sentence 110 times at thirty-second intervals: The meaning of this sentence, which is pronounced in the course of thirty seconds and repeated 110 times, will possibly be revealed at the end of a  series of perceptible or not so perceptible changes in intonation or some kind of  other unexpected effect inevitably arising from the physical persistence of everything

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that can be determined by the residual appearances of empty action in its direct sense of a pure metaphor that reduces the lyric, comic, or tragic sound of its spoken accompaniment to that degree of aesthetic intolerableness where the viewer can do nothing but mechanically switch attention from one image to another.49

In the discussion that followed the action, Prigov distinguished between the use of repetition in what he had just witnessed and his own use of iteration by appealing to Eugene Onegin: “Well, there are long things, for example, Eugene Onegin is long, you can read it for a long time and it’s nothing. But to say that this is an experiment, that some can bear it and some cannot. . . . And if someone bears it, do you add another ten chapters?”50 Contrasting the action with Eugene Onegin, Prigov attacked its use of repetition: It seems to me that the tendency towards the dehumanization of art—which has been observable for a long time in the West and which has, unfortunately, penetrated Russia much more strikingly of course—appears in this experiment. I am not talking about how in this situation a watcher is simply presented as a human being—a thinking, willing, desiring human being, sharing moral circumstances, understandings about life, about work, about the future. I am simply in thinking trying to imagine the image of the author who is as if hidden behind this trumpery, which he wants to hang, like noodles, on the ears of the watchers, to imagine this voice which speaks one hundred and ten times. He actually tries to demonstrate that the person who thinks and can clearly and purely and infectiously articulate his or her inner wishes and make these a goal of all humanity in fact actually resembles some kind of mechanism, repeating this one meaningless sentence.51

Why did Prigov raise such objections to the use of repetition and multimedia effects when both are fundamental elements of his own practice, and why and how did he distinguish his iterations of Pushkin and other texts from the repetitions of Barrel? In his reiterations of Pushkin’s masterpiece, Prigov addresses the relation of artistic creation to conventions and discourses, and the relation of an individual to a system. Through the samizdat principle—which treats reproduction as an individual act of creation—he shows how a work can

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be read and reread and also repeatedly rewritten. He demonstrates that each repetition is actually an act of agency enabling the writer, reader, or viewer to reinterpret a work, a cultural commonplace, or an idea in a new context. Later in the Barrel discussion, Prigov insists, “I am for humanistic art that understands the viewer as a partner, converser, with full respect for him as an individual, in the end simply as a person.”52 Through the intersection of various individual iterations, Prigov highlights not only the dialectic between form and instantiation, between concept and material embodiment, but also the human individuality and agency that he saw as under attack in Barrel. As the Barrel discussion illustrates, Prigov derives from samizdat an iterative poetics that models and instantiates individual agency within a system. He stages both the singular instance of the stone striking the water and the ripples of repetition that surround each act. Hence his work has been simultaneously praised for its “spirit of freedom and improvisation” or “gesture” and for systematically “cataloguing all of the reality that surrounds him.”53 Strongly rejecting the notion of freedom without limits, Prigov does not rely solely on the improvised gesture.54 But refusing the “authorial position of totality” that he finds so abhorrent in Barrel, neither does he simply catalogue. Rather, he wants “to prove that no single language can encompass a person entirely.”55 For Prigov, the person is not just a complex “mechanism” of intersecting discourses, genres, media, and texts, but an active manipulator and responder who, like even the most faithful samizdat copyist, always leaves a mark on the reiterated text. Performed on the cusp of perestroika, Barrel and the discussion that followed took place within the unofficial world of samizdat culture but  also engaged multimedia in ways that anticipate the legacy of the samizdat principle in the postsamizdat world. The explorations of repetition that samizdat inspired offered a way to respond to the new media and global art market that opened up to Russian artists, including Prigov, in the final years of the Soviet Union and in the post-Soviet period. Even as these changes led to the demise of samizdat itself, samizdat culture’s fusion of mechanical reproduction with an equal stress on the singularity of each copy became newly relevant. Artists and writers now sought to address digital media’s proliferating copies and the heightened anxiety about copying wrought by globalization and by its synecdoche, the global art market.

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Prigov addresses the continued relevance of samizdat in the postsamizdat era in his 1998 work Facsimile Reproduction of Dmitri Aleksandrovich Prigov’s Self-Made Book “Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin” with Drawings on the Margins of the Work by Alexander Florensky.56 The work is a printed photographic facsimile of a postsamizdat samizdat work, absurdly dated 1992: that is, after the loosening of state control of publishing and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Equally absurdly, the samizdat text is a retyping of Pushkin’s officially sanctioned and always widely available classic. Prigov introduces the work as a meditation on samizdat and poetry in an era marked by “the insane expansion of media”: This collection-chapbook is one of twelve similar ones (but alas the remainder have not survived) in which the entirety of the great Pushkinian Onegin was contained, executed by me in a typewriter reproduction. The associations with samizdat literature (who remembers such a thing?) are natural, since it was one of its tasks to import high state literature into the context of the sometimes stormy and wildly enthusiastic underground and of its intimate relationship with text. But that’s how it is. In archival excavations just such fine substances and motives are the first to evaporate. But of course, fundamental was the monastic-humble transcription of a sacred text (a sacred text of Russian culture). It is natural that behind the back of the transcriber, just as behind my back, stands his time, which reads the historical document from the point of view of its own “interest” or “irresponsibility,” that is, as a text that is opaque even in the extracts that are known by heart. So too the reference to the Pushkinian Onegin is read from the point of view of the tradition that was victorious in Russian literature—the Lermontovian tradition (though everyone has worshiped and continues to worship the name of Pushkin). The replacement of all adjectives with “insane” and “unearthly,” apart from wildly romanticizing the text, sharply narrows its informational field; however, it also deepens the mantric-incantatory suggestiveness, which in our time of the insane expansion of media and spheres of information is felt and read as the basic and original essence of poetry.57

Recalling his early 1980s account of pop art as dependent on its local context, Prigov here presents an understanding of literary production and reading as a continual process of reframing. Prigov reframes an entire section of Eugene Onegin by replacing, as he says in this introduction, many of the adjectives with either “insane” (bezumnyi ) or “unearthly”

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(nezemnoi). Within this section, the significance of the words “insane” and “unearthly” changes from stanza to stanza of Pushkin’s text— depending on their context and the words that they replace. Pushkin’s text is equally transformed by being presented as a work of samizdat literature and then again by being reproduced as a facsimile. Likewise, the text is reframed by the changed historical circumstances. The “fine substances and motives” of the samizdat era “evaporate” in the new post-Soviet context. What we read instead is, Prigov claims, a “mantric-incantatory” response to the “insane expansion of media and spheres of information” engendered by media deregulation and the rise of the Internet. As a faux archival facsimile, the text not only criticizes the romantic tradition of worshiping Pushkin as a transcendent, “unearthly” being. It also criticizes the nostalgic romanticizing of samizdat by showing it to be just as “insane” as the brave new world of post-Soviet media.58 By signaling this shared insanity, Prigov points to the ongoing utility of the samizdat principle in the post-samizdat era. The samizdat principle offers both an alternative to “the insane expansion of media” and a reproductive art appropriate to the exponential increase in copying in the digital era. Prigov emphasizes the samizdat mode of reproduction as retyping, akin to the manuscript scribes and monks whom he acknowledges as precursors in his introduction. The parallel that Prigov draws with medieval copying recalls a material fact of samizdat and a cultural fact of samizdat writers’ understanding of authorship. As one samizdat writer recalled, “The fate of manuscripts in samizdat was perfectly medieval: they were not under our control, we did not direct them, unknown people made their own additions.”59 Prigov’s systematic substitutions extend and transform this haphazard process of textual transmission in samizdat— and its quasi-religious associations—into an essential quality of the poetic text. The book is, however, equally distanced from the samizdat medium through the processes of photographic facsimile and print reproduction, recalling Prigov’s injunction against the print reproduction of his samizdat texts and Albert’s question: “Did the meaning of this work change after it was photographed?” Both forms of reproduction are marked in the book: the samizdat by the smudged and error-ridden typed text, and the print by the glossy photographic reproductions, the print quality of the surrounding white frame, and the drawings, cover, title page, and introductory text.

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As a samizdat-style work, the book displays its material status as the product of hand reproduction involving retyping and increasingly illegible carbon copies on thin paper. The thinness of the paper—its materiality produced by conditions of state-imposed restraint and the need to produce carbon copies—is highlighted in the facsimile by the reproduction of the reverse of each typescript page, so that we can see the typed text clearly from the other side (figure 2.9). This absurdist level of fidelity emphasizes the book’s status as a facsimile. A copy of a copy, the facsimile either highlights the authenticity of the samizdat copy, which a conventional published book would fail to convey, or conversely, parodies the fetishizing of the samizdat original. In producing a facsimile edition, Prigov fundamentally breaks with the material conditions of the samizdat medium and comments on what happens when a text shifts out of that medium and becomes a published work. But he also emphasizes that the samizdat medium is itself a mode of reproduction rather than a fetishized original and so a touchstone for thinking through the problem of original and copy, singularity and repetition, and instantiation and system in our digital era.

FIGURE 2.9. From Dmitrii Prigov, Faksimil'noe vosproizvedenie [Facsimile reproduction]. Reproduced by permission of the estate of Dmitrii Prigov.

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The tension between reproduction and instantiation, concept and realization, raises the question of whether we should read Prigov’s Facsimile at all—whether it is in fact best approached as either a framed picture or objet d’art, or conversely, as a pure concept. In this respect, the Facsimile recalls Prigov’s Little Coffins of Rejected Verse. In the Little Coffins series Prigov goes so far as to render reading impossible by sealing his poems between samizdat-style stapled covers.60 Prigov’s large-scale production of Little Coffins in the late 1980s alluded to Soviet censorship, while also anticipating its imminent demise and the resultant death of samizdat. At the same time, Prigov’s Little Coffins presaged the samizdat text’s afterlife in our current age of digital media and globalization, when these sealed poems became packaged-for-export works of visual art.61 Similarly, by unsettling notions of medium, materiality, and authenticity, Prigov’s Facsimile questions the treatment of poetry as a transcendent, singular utterance and instead emphasizes the samizdat poetics of reproduction. By reprising samizdat in the postsamizdat era, Prigov implies that the moment of transition from the Soviet to post-Soviet eras—and from print to new media—hides perpetual sameness amid apparent change. Prigov concludes the work by transforming Pushkin’s final couplet from chapter 6, stanza 45, of Eugene Onegin, “Puskaius' nyne v novyi put' / Ot zhizni proshloi otdokhnut' ” (I start upon an untrod way / To take my rest from yesterday), into “Bezumnyi nyne novyi put' / Ot vsekh bezumii otdokhnut' ” (The new pathway is now insane / To take my rest from all insanities).62 The repetitive words signify the inescapable repetition of a romantic attitude, but by combining Pushkin’s text, romanticism, samizdat, and post-Soviet culture, they also leave open a “new pathway” (“novyi put' ”) that signifies not through a single transcendent leap but through these very moments of uncertain intersection between forms of repetition. The drawings mentioned in the title also unsettle the framing and boundaries of the work, its medium, materiality, and historical position. The images are presented as marginalia printed on the white border surrounding the facsimile reproductions. They closely resemble each other, so that when the pages are flicked through at speed, the pictures combine to produce a moving image of Pushkin tipping his hat. The flip-book genre underscores the multiplicity of media and historical moments at play. It stands historically between print and cinema, like zoetropes and other precinema, nineteenth-century technologies. The images are done in a style

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reminiscent of Pushkin’s well-known marginalia and so also allude to the manuscript fetish and associate it with the fetishization of the samizdat text. By reiterating and so animating Pushkin, Prigov identifies this fetishization with his related understanding of Russia’s peculiarly nonhistorical, time-transcending relationship to its past: in Germany Goethe is “only a historical figure,” Prigov insists, but in Russia Pushkin is “always alive.” 63 By iterating the work across media—samizdat, photograph, print, flip book, and manuscript—and so underscoring its uncertain materiality, Prigov oscillates the Facsimile between copy and original, between repeatable conceptual work and embodied instantiation. The work explores the idea that original and copy, materiality and concept, and instantiation and iteration are inseparable and so allows the samizdat principle to outlive samizdat. Just as his Little Coffins series breathes new life into the dead samizdat format, Prigov’s Facsimile vivifies Pushkin and the samizdat text well after their deaths. But Prigov’s Facsimile also frames both Pushkin’s masterpiece and the samizdat text as dead concepts—ghostly repetitions without substance—suggesting that each might be buried under its own idea. Prigov’s Facsimile performs and undermines the idea that Pushkin is the living heart of Russian culture and, concomitantly, the idea that the samizdat text offers a nearly lost source of “humanistic art” in an era when “the insane expansion of media” threatens to reduce “all humanity” to “some kind of mechanism.” By highlighting the iterative form of the samizdat text and its seeming new media antithesis, the book gives substance to each idea while simultaneously condemning both to the grave. FRAGILE BODIES

By producing unique material instantiations of an explicitly conceptual and iterative system, Prigov criticizes and offers an alternative to the way a fetishized physical object (like the samizdat book) or author (like Pushkin) comes to be reified as an overriding transcendent concept (such as humanity or Russian culture), so eliding its particularity. Ann Komaromi takes a different view, arguing that in satirizing the fetishization of the samizdat book, Prigov retains a commitment to authorial genius and to the samizdat mythology that “the more wretched the material manifestation, the more sublime the impulse behind it.” She finds this idea in

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Prigov’s assertion to her in an interview that the samizdat typescript’s “fragile and compromised material carries precious content, a metaphor for human life.” 64 Yet Prigov’s metaphor cuts both ways. While envisioning the book as a symbol for “human life,” Prigov also reminds us of the danger of reading only for the concept or idea rather than the unique material embodiment: in making the samizdat book a metaphor for our lives, we erase the material qualities—thin paper, smudged ink—that made the metaphor compelling in the first place. Prigov highlights the repeatable and generalizable “impulse” or concept, but he also underscores its enmeshment in a system of power, ideology, media, and copying that is inhuman and disabling if it is allowed to take precedence over the singular instantiation. Prigov’s example suggests how samizdat led to an iterative turn in Russian art and literature. Iterative poetics allowed artists and writers like Prigov to explore the problem of singular enunciation within systems of discourse and power in 1970s and 1980s everyday Soviet life and unofficial Russian literary and artistic culture, and in the new media and political environment of post-Soviet Russia. Through the example of samizdat, Prigov’s copy works stage the dialectic between concept and instantiation, revealing how each inevitably invokes and threatens to subsume the other. The samizdat principle thereby also unsettles the notion, partly propounded by Prigov, that Russian conceptualism addresses the fetishization of the idea while Western conceptualism attacks the fetishization of the object.65 Instead, the iterative poetics of samizdat insists on the mutual interdependence of materiality and concept. Conceptual art is commonly seen as responding to the new media, communication systems, global interconnectivity, and image commodification of the 1960s and 1970s. This account needs to be augmented through recognition of the alternative extra-Gutenberg media sphere of samizdat and its contribution to the thinking through of problems of repetition, materiality, and embodiment in art and literature today. What I have called the samizdat principle presages elements of the iterative turn discernible in twenty-first-century literature, art, and music. Though rooted in a particularly Soviet cultural, historical, and material context, the iterative poetics of samizdat anticipates, for example, the competing understandings of contemporary conceptual writing in the Englishlanguage world as either emphasizing linguistic materiality or negating materiality in favor of allegory, performance, or concept.66 The samizdat

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principle enabled Prigov to unify his multimedia literary, performance, and artistic practices into a single “global project.”67 It also allows us to recognize the common iterative turn in diverse strands of twenty-first-century writing and art. Even as it emerges out of the late Soviet era, the samizdat principle offers a way to reconcile the frequently polarized responses to the iterative turn in late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century writing, art, and cultural theory. Such polarization can be overcome by recognizing the shared iterative poetics informing parts of Prigov’s practice that seem to erase individuality, such as copying, and those that highlight it, such as performance. Prigov’s samizdat iterations offer an alternative to the conflicting views of iterative cultural theory—one that recognizes not just the challenges to agency, originality, and cultural difference posed by globalization and technology but also the infinite possibilities of reiteration and recombination. Prigov’s samizdat-inflected copy works neither eliminate individuality nor subsume it in a totalized form. They find gesture within constraint, agency in iteration, freedom at the intersection of texts, forms, media, and systems; and in life, a recurring improvisation.

Chapter Three

MAKING WAVES IN WORLD LITERATURE Yang Lian and John Cayley’s Networked Collaboration

I have so far explored two contexts for the iterative turn: the intertwinement of the postcolonial moment with the rise of new media in the 1960s and 1970s, and the intersection of conceptual art with samizdat in the Soviet Union of the 1970s and 1980s. Of course, these contexts are by no means unrelated. Nor are they exhaustive. The new media technologies and consciousness of the 1960s were equally crucial to conceptual art in the West, which in turn influenced the rise of conceptualism in the Soviet Union in the 1970s. And the tape recorder was a key technology for a wide range of artists whose practices contributed to the iterative turn, from Samuel Beckett and Andy Warhol to Kamau Brathwaite and Dmitri Prigov. The story of the iterative turn is, then, neither one of the wavelike propagation of a set of practices outward from a single cultural center nor one of entirely separate developments. Rather, the iterative turn comprises intertwined tendencies that grow out of global networks of communication and shared and differentiated technological, cultural, and geopolitical contexts. The larger story involves, if not convergence, then at least tendencies and practices that mutually interfere with and shape one another. The postcolonial and samizdat turns to repetition reflect local and global changes in media and political authority. They also suggest that the iterative turn was as much, if not more, a product of the so-called Second and Third Worlds as of the First.

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This story of multiple but intertwined contexts for the iterative turn offers an alternative to the conceptual models of world literature currently on offer and a corrective to the inclination, often accompanying these models, to think of modern literary history as a series of tendencies that originate in Western European and Anglo-American centers and spread outward in waves to other parts of the world. This kind of thinking promotes a world literary history that repeats, rather than critiques, “the concepts of originality, development, and belatedness that lie at the center of the modern world view.”1 Iterative practices undo the privileging of originality over repetition. The story of the global rise of iterative poetics likewise requires a different kind of literary history. This chapter explores the collaboration between Chinese poet Yang Lian 㣲䃱 and Anglo-Canadian programmer-poet John Cayley for clues to this new kind of literary history. Yang and Cayley’s collaboration involves two intertwining tales: the use of traditional Chinese texts and Ezra Pound’s Chinese-inflected modernism to derive a theory and practice of digital poetics; and the encounter between this Chinese-derived digital poetics and modern Chinese poetry. Yang and Cayley’s shared interest in the wave as a figure for their recursive poetry and in the limitations of the link-node architecture of the World Wide Web allows me to explore the shortcomings of both the wave and network metaphors as they have been used to conceptualize world literature. It also enables me to propose how these metaphors might be adapted to describe the complexities of recent literary history exemplified by the iterative turn. In 1990 Stephen Owen turned to the wave metaphor to describe the new phenomenon of “world poetry.” World poetry, Owen wrote, “turns out, unsurprisingly, to be a version of Anglo-American modernism or French modernism, depending on which wave of colonial culture first washed over the intellectuals of the country in question. This situation is the quintessence of cultural hegemony, when an essentially local tradition (AngloEuropean) is widely taken for granted as universal.”2 Owen here echoes the recurrent worry that using the term modernism might turn twentiethcentury Chinese literature into “a diluted story about repetition.”3 Such worries were redoubled during the revival of the term in mainland China in the 1980s. They extended into debates about Chinese literature in the 1990s and beyond, when anxiety was fueled by the growing profile of Chinese

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artists and writers abroad, by the worldwide expansion of new information and communication technologies, and by the post–Cold War rise of economic globalization, in which China played an increasingly central role. In this context, writers associated with the 1980s revival of modernism, such as Yang and novelist Yo Yo ⍳⍳, continue to feel the need to distinguish themselves from slavish adopters of foreign forms. “If one gives up self-questioning, art becomes the same as plagiarism; by adopting the language of American or European art movements, Chinese art plays into the hands of Western hegemony,” Yang and Yo Yo argue, before going on to ask, “Do artists have the right to steal and sell second-hand products simply because they are ‘Chinese artists’?” 4 In describing the wave of Euro-American modernism washing over various non-European countries and traditions, Owen’s 1990 review of another writer of Yang and Yo Yo’s milieu, Bei Dao ⊿Ⲟ, not only echoes these longstanding anxieties about modern Chinese literature and art but also anticipates one of the most influential recent accounts of modern literary history on a global scale: Franco Moretti’s argument that world literary history can be understood as a series of waves translated from culture to culture. For Moretti and other world-systems literary theorists, the apparent plurality of modernisms is merely the result of the “interference” produced when essentially the same literary form, such as the novel or modernist poetry, washes into a new language, culture, and tradition.5 Writing in the early 1990s, Xiaobing Tang took a different view, arguing that modernism in China named “all discursive practices opposed to a repressive political order,” rather than the imposition of “an old-fashioned and essentially Western label on the twentieth-century Chinese literary tradition.” 6 Extending Tang’s thesis a few years later, Xiaomei Chen claimed that, far from being merely a pale imitation, modernism in mainland China in the 1980s meant something quite different from modernism in the West and that this “misunderstanding” of Western modernism, in Chen’s nonderogative sense, functioned as a “counter-discourse” to official ideology.7 Tang and Chen helped inaugurate another influential approach to world literary history, whereby Chinese and global modernisms were reconceived as a plurality of responses to global modernity. In this chapter I argue for an alternative framework for modern literary history on a global scale. This iterative framework adopts the metaphor of

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modernist waves but rejects the dichotomy of sameness and difference and the static notions of Chinese and Western through which these and other competing approaches to Chinese and global modernism have been routed. I develop the case for this iterative framework by considering a work that deploys the wave metaphor to address its own uncertain position both inside and outside China and Chinese modernism: Yang’s long poem Where the Sea Stands Still (Dahai tingzhi zhi chu ⣏㴟 㬊ᷳ嗽). Written in 1993 and first published in 1995 (in a bilingual edition from Cayley’s Wellsweep Press), the poem was two years later transformed by Yang and Cayley into a collaborative poetic work for HyperCard, HTML, and live performance.8 Yang and Cayley’s collaboration and their use of the wave as a figure for their practice allow me to explore several shortcomings of current approaches to global modernism and world literature. First, Yang and Cayley’s work highlights the conceptual problem with both Owen’s and Chen’s models. Although Owen’s and Chen’s accounts of Chinese modernism contradict each other, both rely on relatively fixed conceptions of cultural location and cultural forms. Either the wave of Euro-American modernism washes over local writers, transforming all in its wake, or this modernist wave is utterly transformed by its new Chinese location, so that it makes little sense to talk about a wave at all. One should instead speak of modernisms in the plural, each defined by its local context. And yet Yang and Cayley’s collaboration extends the complex and now well-documented mutual dependency of Chinese and Western modernisms.9 Yang and Cayley contribute to parallel but mutually interfering lines of development in Anglophone and Sinophone iterative poetics. Their collaboration suggests the need to understand global modernism as neither incomparably multiple nor unchangingly singular. Second, the collaboration draws into question the alternative and arguably currently dominant model for thinking literature on a global scale: the network. The network model imagines literary relations as a series of nodes and links through which texts and forms circulate. This approach frees literary history from the diachronic apartheid of origins and belatedness but remains committed to the integrity and separateness of each cultural unit, or node on the network. Yet Yang and Cayley’s collaboration evinces how the iterative turn emerged partly out of the refraction of Chinese and Western modernist poetics through a new geopolitical and media context that

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profoundly complicated the notion of cultural location: the era of globalization that followed the end of the Cold War and the rise of the Internet. As Yang and Cayley’s collaboration illustrates, texts may be born online and in translation; their location in a national literature or language ceases to be a nodal given that precedes the links through which they relate to the wider world.10 Where the Sea Stands Still is neither the product of a singular Chinese modernism nor simply the reproduction of a European modernist form. Rather, it is about the problems and possibilities of imagining places and cultural positions in terms of waves and interferences and is itself an example of a text produced out of a complex set of iterations, locations, histories, and media. The poem was written in Sydney, Australia, in the shadow of the events of June 4, 1989, but also of Deng Xiaoping’s 1992 tour of southern China, which ushered in the country’s subsequent economic expansion and our current era of globalization. Its immediate context also encompasses both Owen’s criticism of modern Chinese poetry and the Mao Goes Pop exhibition that helped inaugurate the global popularity of contemporary Chinese art. Yang and Cayley’s 1997 multimedia performance piece engages another chapter in recent Chinese history: it was one of a series of works commissioned by the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London to mark Hong Kong’s return to China. The HyperCard poem was then reworked into an HTML hyperlink poem of the same name and uploaded onto the World Wide Web. The resultant text is “born-translated.”11 The digital work that is Where the Sea Stands Still is both Chinese and English and a machine-coded text. Its ontology and location are further complicated by its being a performed work, a HyperCard stack, and a website. Moreover, Cayley’s approach to programming was profoundly influenced by his understanding of parallelism in classical Chinese poetry and by Poundian modernism, which was itself shaped by Pound’s reading, or misreading, of classical Chinese texts. A multiply versioned and languaged text composed the year the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) first made World Wide Web technology freely available, Where the Sea Stands Still is a collocation of  many intertwining and mutually interfering waves of literary history that exemplifies the difficulty of pinpointing a text’s—and modernism’s— geographic, cultural, and media location.

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STATES OF VIBRATION

By staging the tension between land and sea, stasis and movement, Yang’s Where the Sea Stands Still confronts the problem of location. The poem addresses this problem in the context of personal and geopolitical dislocation: Yang writes in exile after June 4, 1989, and at the beginning of a new era of globalization. His poem turns to the wave movements of the sea as a counter to the repetitions of both essentialized Chineseness and placeless globalism. In an unpublished note on Where the Sea Stands Still, also written in 1993, Yang explains that the poem seeks to escape the repetitions of Chinese thought—its “collective images” (普ỻシ⁷) and “vocabulary” (彆㯯).12 Yang here seems to have in mind the perceived entrapment of the Chinese tradition, as represented by such land-based works as his 1980s long poem Banpo ⋲✉, which centers on a famous Chinese archeological site. But his comment also targets what Li Tuo 㛶旨 had analyzed a few years earlier as the “dominance of the Mao style” in contemporary Chinese discourse, or what Geremie Barmé, drawing on Li, termed “MaoSpeak.”13 Yang describes the repetitions of MaoSpeak as perpetuated rather than subverted by what he would later call “Cultural Revolution Pop,” work that draws on communist iconography of the Mao era.14 Yang’s poem and commentary in particular seem to address the landmark Mao Goes Pop exhibition, which also took place in Sydney in 1993, and which Barmé criticized in similar terms. “Much of the cultural iconoclasm that plays with Chinese political symbols tempers its irony with a disturbing measure of validation,” writes Barmé in his contribution to the exhibition catalogue. “Mao has become a consumer item,” marketed by artists who play to foreign audiences’ desires for “the exotic or dissident Other.”15 In his poem and commentary, Yang seeks to differentiate himself from those who merely repeat others’ images, words, and forms in ways that affirm domestic ideology and foreign desires. He also implicitly responds to Owen’s attack on Bei Dao’s work as “world poetry” written to be translated into English, a poetry devoid of a sense of Chinese tradition and history and instead characterized by its repetition of Western modernist forms.16 Both Barmé and Owen presented new takes on the familiar double bind of Chinese modernism whereby works are criticized for following too closely either domestic or foreign traditions. Yang had already encountered

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this double bind in the highly politicized controversy over the revival of Chinese modernism in the 1980s. At this time, Yang had sought to respond to the double bind through a synthesis of individual and collective voice, which he outlined in essays like “Tradition and Us” (“Chuantong yu women” Ỉ亇ᶶㆹẔ) and enacted in works such as Banpo and his 1980s epic Yi.17 In his commentary on Where the Sea Stands Still, Yang presents the new poem as a departure from these land-based works and an attempt to avoid the entrapping repetitions both of Chinese tradition and politics and of globalization. Yang associates such repetitions with the “earth” (tudi ⛇ ⛘), a word paralleling and opposing the “sea” (dahai ⣏㴟).18 The sea provides Yang with a crucial counterpoint, not only to a land-based Chinese cultural tradition, but also to a mode of globalization stuck in static repetitions. In turning to the sea as a figure for dynamism and a global outlook, Yang echoes the oceanic utopianism of 1980s Chinese modernization discourse. This oceanic utopianism is exemplified by the 1988 TV series River Elegy (He shang 㱛㭌), in which the despotism and backwardness of China’s “millennia-old inland civilization” (ↈ⋫⸜䘬ℭ旮㔯㖶), associated with the Yellow River, give way to the “sea” (dahai ⣏㴟).19 Here, the sea represents China’s renewed engagement with the “science and democracy” (䥹⬎ᶶ㮹 ᷣ) of the West’s “maritime civilization” (㴟㲳㔯㖶) and the country’s opening of its seaports to global markets.20 In a 1993 discussion with Gao Xingjian 檀埴‍ in Sydney, Yang cites the just drafted Where the Sea Stands Still in describing a similar turn from his land-based exploration of the Chinese tradition in Yi to the sea. He explains that this turn marks his rejection of the “motherland” (䣾⚥) and “mother tongue” (㭵宕), his refusal to be “subservient to a piece of land” (晞Ⰶᶨ䇯⛇⛘), and the acceptance of his “floating life” (㺪㱲)—a term for “wandering” or “exile” that chimes with the maritime theme.21 Yang also participates in the new era of transoceanic global trade through his turn from the Chinese tradition to a poetry less defined by location, and later through his collaboration with Cayley on the poem’s dual-language print publication and digital adaptation. Yang’s sea, however, opposes the utopian symbolism of River Elegy. Far from being an unequivocal symbol of progress, the sea in Where the Sea Stands Still is bewildering, repetitive, and filled with death—from “gaudy speckles on dead fish” (㬣欂幓ᶲ歖刟䘬㔹溆; 1.1) to the “paralysis” that is “the bright blue goal that makes the sea dazzle” (侴䘙䖻ˢ㗗ἧ⣏㴟侨䛤䘬

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㸃啵䚖䘬; 3.2). Yang’s commentaries on the poem evince a similar sense of the sea’s symbolic ambiguity and a related concern to reject dislocated globalism and static localism. In an essay on Where the Sea Stands Still first presented as a 1995 talk in Germany, Yang sought to develop his new seabased poetics further while implicitly responding to Owen’s accusations about the lack of Chineseness in modern Chinese poetry. Rejecting national location in favor of his linguistic identity as a “Chinese-language poet” (ᷕ㔯䘬孿Ṣ), Yang claims that “Chinese taught me innately to reject time” (ᷕ㔯㔁Ểㆹ: 㛔峐⛘㉺亅㖞斜).22 Yang here and subsequently develops an account of modern Chinese poetics that stresses its difference from Western poetics yet repeats some of the clichés of Western modernist imagining of the Chinese written language and of 1980s Chinese modernism’s oceanic imagining of the West. Rather than simply being Yang’s essentialist image for the timelessness of the Chinese language, the sea standing still figures a timelessness that is in fact the product of ceaseless movement, of multiple contexts and layers of cross-cultural reading. Similarly, the poem describes a location in Sydney, Australia, and a condition of “floating life” or exile defined by movement away from the fixed earth and tradition and toward an individual idiolect that Yang in the same essay calls “Yanglish” (㜐㔯).23 Such a poetics would seem to favor modernist idiolect and untranslatability—indeed Yang writes of his poem “making translators go mad” (孑侣孹⭞⍹䕗)— over poetry “written for translation,” or what Owen terms “fungible” world poetry.24 Yet the poem remains poised between the assertion of an idiolect poetics and a poetics of repeated “collective images” and cultural stereotypes that moves easily, like the ocean or Owen’s modernist waves, from one nation and language to another. The poem was first published in a duallanguage Chinese and English edition, and the Chinese evinces Englishlanguage interference. Perhaps in response to translator Brian Holton’s questions to Yang about whether he should “define nouns as singular or plural,” Yang’s poem shows the impact of English in its frequent use of the construction yi ge ᶨ᷒ (“a” or “one”), which is marked in Chinese, where singular and plural are not normally specified.25 Seeking both to accommodate and madden his translators, Yang responds equally to the pressures—and dangers—of singularity and repetition, of idiolectic idiosyncrasy and translatable collective images, of Chineseness and worldliness,

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of stasis and flux, and of static essentialism undermined by its own multiple relations. Where the Sea Stands Still therefore does not eschew repetitions; it revels in them, both thematically and formally. The diegetic world of the poem centers on the poet sitting at the edge of the Sydney Cliffs watching the Tasman Sea break against the rocks below. Elements of this scene, such as the “seagulls” (㴟浿), “waves” (㲊), “anchors” (拐), and “jellyfish” (㯜㭵), appear throughout the poem, and keywords evoking the location are repeated frequently, including “cliffs” (ㆠⲾ; repeated five times), “rocks” (䞛; six times), “blue” (啵; eight times), “wind” (桐; nine times), “birds” (沍; six times), and “fish” (欂; five times). The character hai 㴟 (sea) appears forty times in the poem. The sea lexicon here serves a dual purpose. It anchors the poem in a particular location, whose fixity is reinforced by the “cliffs,” “rocks,” and “anchors.” Yet it also dissolves location: most of the oceanic words, though they can be read as part of the Sydney scene, refer to things in constant motion, often (like the “wind,” the “fish,” and the “sea” itself) across vast distances. These words are also generic: most of these things could be found on almost any seashore around the world. The repetitions of these words reinforce this dual sense of fixity and movement. On the one hand, the repetitions inhibit movement and progression: the poem remains stuck in the same vocabulary and location. But on the other hand, repetition also emphasizes the changes that these words undergo as they are repeated in new contexts. Repeated in a new poetic line, the word “sea” is never quite the same, just as the sea itself is constantly shifting. The oceanic vocabulary and sense of geographic displacement stand in tension with the fixity of a land-based location, emphasized in the final part of the poem by the directions to Yang’s Sydney address: King Street ᶨ䚜崘 Enmore Road ⎛廱 Cambridge Street 14 嘇 (4.1)

The shift to roman script—aside from the Chinese for “go straight,” “turn right,” and “number”—stresses the displacement to Sydney from Yang’s native Beijing. Elsewhere Yang contrasts Auckland, New Zealand, another

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harbor city and the place where he first lived after June 4, 1989, with “that ancient city buried in dust and yellow earth” (恋⹏湬⛇␴䀘⯀㍑❳䘬⎌❶) where the sea is only a “myth” (䤆宅).26 The sea marks his geographical displacement from dry northern Beijing and his “floating life” or exile. The poem encodes the play between land and sea in the term dizhi ⛘⛨ (“address”; repeated five times in the poem), a word that in Chinese combines the word for “earth” or “land” (di ⛘) with a word for “location” or “site” (zh݁ ⛨). Zh݁ ⛨ in turn rhymes visually (distinguished only by the addition of the “earth” radical t‫)⛇ ݛ‬, aurally, and semantically with zh݁ 㬊, one of the characters in the word translated as “stands still” in the poem’s title. Ironically, the words here that insist on location, address, and stillness lack the evocations of physical place that the sea images in the poem provide, so that the two sets of words stand in counterpoint: the sea is shifting and unstoppable, yet more realistically depicted and pinpointed. By contrast, the address, though providing a precise location, quickly transforms into “countless places” (䃉㔠 . . . ⛘溆; 4.1), becoming what is repeatedly referred to as an undefined “some address” (㝸ᾳ⛘⛨; 4.3) further on in the final part of the poem. The repeated instances of di ⛘ in “places” (⛘䁡; 4.1, 4.3), “addresses” (⛘⛨; 4.1, 4.3), and “map” (⛘⚾; 4.1) highlight how “words” are said to “compose addresses” (㥳ㆸ⛘⛨䘬录; 4.3). “Words” (ci 录) bury a person “underground” (dixia ⛘ᶳ; 4.2), placing a person literally under the suffocating stasis of di ⛘, with its connotations of earth, place, address, and land-bound location. The poem’s formal repetitions also stress stasis in movement, location in dislocation. Echoing its multiple historical and geographic locations, the iterative structure of Yang’s long poem produces an expanding sense of space and geography that, like the title, combines perpetual repetition with continuous change. The 229-line, fifty-eight-stanza long poem comprises four parts, each entitled “Where the Sea Stands Still” (“Dahai tingzhi zhi chu” ⣏㴟 㬊ᷳ嗽). There is no numbering, so each part’s title is identical to all the others. Each part has three sections and ends with the final two characters of the title: zhi chu ᷳ嗽 (the place where). These final lines, like the poem as a whole, combine spatial and temporal arrest with the sea’s ceaseless repetitive movements. The poem’s repeated images, title, final words, and structure produce a fluid sense of space; they leave readers unsure of their place within the text because the usual markers of progression—such as progressive numbering, varied titles, and changes in

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subject matter—are absent. Adding another layer to these iterations, Yang gave the same title to two major collections of his poetry in Chinese and in English.27 Each poem entitled “Where the Sea Stands Still” appears within the long poem Where the Sea Stands Still, which is in turn within the collection Where the Sea Stands Still. Prigov created Stone and Circles on Water by cutting concentric circles from successive pages of his repeated text. Deploying the same watery metaphor, Yang describes his poem as a series of “concentric circles” (⎴⽫⚮).28 Each of Yang’s poems titled “Where the Sea Stands Still” relates to all the other poems of that title in wavelike expanding circles of meaning. Paralleling the repeated titles, each of the poem’s four parts repeats a series of syntactic structures. Each of the three sections within each part deploys a distinctive syntactic element, producing a sense of progression within repetition, movement within stasis. The strict stanzaic forms of the second section of each of the poem’s four parts stand in counterpoint to the irregular stanzaic structures of the other two sections of each part. These second sections of each part are also distinguished by their third-person constructions, as opposed to sections 1 and 3 of each part, which use the first or second person. Similarly, the pronoun “you” (Ἀ), which dominates parts one and three, is in counterpoint with “we” (ㆹᾹ) in parts two and four.29 All these carefully structured repetitions and variations stress a unity that is also characterized by continuous shifting difference, thereby contributing at a formal level to the thematic vision of location as continuous wavelike movement. The poem also repeats various grammatical constructions, generating a sense of place and location out of purely relational grammatical particles. The most important of these grammatical parallelisms is the sentence structure “X 䘬ᶶ塓 X 䘬” (“. . . X and by X . . .”), where X is a repeated word. This sentence structure appears recurrently in the third section of  each of the four parts of the poem, as, for example, in the following passage: ╖婧䘬冯塓╖婧慵墯䘬

㗗伒埴

ᶨᾳ䌐嗽ㆠⲾ䘬Ṣ㭼ㆠⲾ㚜⁷䚉柕 Ἀ 䛤䜃

塓ᶲ⋫☠啵刚䞛⟲䟠叿 幚ᶵ攳䟠Ἦ䘬⣏㴟

恋䚳夳䘥㘅䘬冯塓䘥㘅∅⃱䘬

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what’s monotonous and what’s monotonously copied is criminal a person who lives alone on a cliff resembles an end more than the cliff does you are smashed by a thousand tons of blue rock eyes can’t dodge the sea that comes smashing in what watches the daytime and what’s stripped bare by the daytime (1.3)

The repetitive waveform smashing against the rocks itself becomes an object to be repeated, so that form and content, object and wave, are inextricable, just as the cliffs and sea merge in the “thousand tons of blue rock.” Land and sea become not just objects or places but dynamic waves. The poem describes waves of water propagated through the medium of the “sea that comes smashing in,” alongside the counterintuitive image of waves propagating through the medium of “a thousand tons of blue rock.” The solid ground of the “cliff” offers a location: the word duchu 䌐嗽 (to be located alone) contains the chu 嗽 character, which (pronounced in a different tone) signifies “place” or “where” in the title. But the solid ground of a “thousand tons” of rock is also the “blue” of the sea, and the transformation of cliff into wave is enacted by the repetition of the word “cliff.” The repeated word xuanya ㆠⲾ (cliff) in the second line parallels the other repetitions in the passage, including dandiao ╖婧 (monotonous/monotonously), bei 塓 (by), and baizhou 䘥㘅 (daytime), which collectively mimic the monotonous rhythm of the sea and reimagine words and things as wavelike processes of iteration. The word chu 嗽 or “place” (translated in the title and elsewhere in the poem as “where”) itself plays a crucial role in the reframing of locations as wavelike iterations. The words zhi chu ᷳ嗽 (“the place where” or simply “where”) conclude each part within the poem: 㬋䃉䚉⛘彼⚆昼⣄⢆㬣ᷳ嗽

where the necrosis of last night goes endlessly back (1.3)

 㬊⛐ᶨ⟜㙜桐暐ᶵ⎗傥 㬊ᷳ嗽

stands still where a storm can never stand still (2.3)

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⛐掉⫸嘃㥳䘬䳸⯨㻓⺞䃉怲ᷳ嗽

where the mirror’s fictive ending stretches endlessly away (3.3)

忁㗗⽆Ⱡ怲䛢㛃冒⶙↢㴟ᷳ嗽

this is where we look out from the shore on ourselves setting out to sea (4.3)

Given the left-branching syntax of relative clauses in Chinese, the words zhi chu ᷳ嗽 (where) could refer back not only to the preceding phrase (as in “where a storm can never stand still”) but to the entire poem, producing an extreme form of the nominalizations that characterize Yang’s syntax in Where the Sea Stands Still.30 This is the place, that is, where all the strange and surrealistic descriptions of the sea and cliffs happen, rendering all the paratactic phrases of the poem hypotactically connected in a syntactic oscillation between particularity and totality. Zhi chu ᷳ嗽 suggests a precise location, an object or a point in space and time. However, the many paratactically arranged modifiers that define this location and the poem’s structural repetitions depend crucially on relation. We are offered not one but many places. The poem moves relentlessly around the same location, presenting various descriptions that refuse to coalesce into a single object. Emphasizing this repetition with difference, Yang also repeats chu 嗽 in a number of two-character words: daochu ⇘嗽 (everywhere), shenchu 㶙嗽 (depths/abyss), and biechu ⇍嗽 (elsewhere). Location is a product not just of an address, a dizhi ⛘⛨, a place to stand still on land, but also of a hai  . . . zhi 㴟 . . . 㬊, an impossible site where the sea stands still—at once “everywhere” and always “elsewhere.” Where the Sea Stands Still functions as much through these forms of repetition as through any object it describes. As in the modern theory of light, the poem is a particle, a place, but it is also a perpetually moving wave of relations and repetitions. This matters in crucial ways to theories of world literature and global modernism because it unsettles the static notions of location—place, language, culture, and tradition—on which these theories are so often based. Instead, my reading of Where the Sea Stands Still suggests a wavelike definition of location, just as, in an extended version of modern wave theory, everything has a wavelength—everything, as John

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Cage puts it, is “in a state of vibration.”31 The poetics and cultural positioning of Where the Sea Stands Still can help us recognize that geographic and cultural positions are themselves continuously in flux. As the digital adaptations of Where the Sea Stands Still illustrate, the same is true of languages and media. WRITING IN LIGHT

Yang and Cayley’s 1997 adaptation of Where the Sea Stands Still involved a complex interweaving of people, places, languages, literary traditions, and old and new media. Yang’s association with Cayley had begun when the digital poet published Yang’s Non-person Singular through his Wellsweep Press in 1994, and by September 1995 it had extended to Cayley hosting Yang in his London flat. At that time, Cayley announced that Wellsweep had published the first edition of Where the Sea Stands Still in a bilingual text with English translations by Scottish translator Brian Holton, translations that would also be used in the digital adaptation.32 Commissioned to mark the return of Hong Kong to Chinese control, the digital version of Where the Sea Stands Still incorporated images by France-based writer and artist Gao Xingjian and calligraphy by the UK-based Qu Leilei 㚚䡲䡲. Linking Australia, Canada, China, England, France, Hong Kong, and Scotland, the geographical constellation generated by the poem went truly global when Cayley published an HTML version of their collaboration on the World Wide Web. Cayley’s and Yang’s approaches rhymed, but their motivations were distinct. Yang’s poetics of stasis in flux, the sea standing still, emerged out of an effort to find a location for modern Chinese poetry outside the stasis of Chinese nativism and placeless globalism—to use repetition to escape both threats of perpetual sameness. Cayley developed a poetics of the computer that drew on and elaborated the complexities of both traditional and modern Chinese- and English-language poetry. He sought to revise the resources of modernism for the digital age to oppose the prescriptive accounts of hypertext literature that came to prominence in the early 1990s. Their collaboration combines these concerns while also addressing the historical moment of what Cayley terms the poem’s “cybertextual” transformation.33 The text of Where the Sea Stands Still bears the mark of Yang’s

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exile years and exchanges the fixity of the earth and Chinese history in his earlier work for the fluidity and transnational reach of the sea. The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) performance recontextualizes the work in relation to the return of Hong Kong to China. In this context, the sea becomes a figure for the southern seaport of Hong Kong and, as in River Elegy, a metaphor for China’s relationship with the West. Hong Kong is juxtaposed with its new capital through Yang’s Mandarin Chinese and Beijing inflection, and with its old colonial master, London, through the performance’s setting and through Cayley’s Anglo-Canadian accent. Refracted through this new historical moment, Where the Sea Stands Still comes to confront the entrapment threatened by both Chinese and Western traditions: the “wound of all the past” (ℐ悐忶⍣䘬 ; 3.2). In confronting the limitations of both traditions, Yang and Cayley’s collaboration demonstrates the impossibility of restricting the study of modernism to one place or time. Through the collaboration, Yang’s poetry— associated with the 1980s revival of modernism in China—is intertwined with practices that might be thought of as quintessentially Western and postmodernist but in fact turn out to be equally dependent on a modernist revival and an engagement with the Chinese tradition. Just as the work of each poet cannot be located wholly in one place, their collaborative recreation of the poem shows how digital media came to be imagined through modernist practices of cross-cultural reading. Their collaboration illustrates and addresses the problem with treating one form—say, modern poetry—as moving across various statically defined traditions, languages, historical moments, and media of inscription. Instead, their work suggests the necessity of seeing each of these elements not as fixed positions but as mutually interfering and therefore continuously changing processes. Both Cayley and Yang, for instance, further intertwine the crisscrossing histories of Chinese and Western modernism by drawing on Pound’s reading or misreading of Chinese poetry. For Cayley and Yang, Chinese inscription and poetics were privileged sites for synchronicity, for the true realization of a Poundian poetics. In part through his reading of Pound and collaboration with Cayley, Yang came to present Where the Sea Stands Still as a work that refuses location in space and time and, at the same time, insists on the particular synchronic, “timeless” possibilities of the Chinese language as a medium for poetry. For Yang, both “Chinese characters and poetry constitute a concentric circle of synchronicity,” a form mirrored by

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the Russian doll–like structure of repeated titles in Where the Sea Stands Still.34 In describing the scene that inspired Where the Sea Stands Still, Yang connects the sea at the Sydney cliffs to this timelessness: “The blank space is like breakers crashing into the body. This word delimited by its shape forces you again into a position of finality. The position of the pictograph is a terminal point: a convergence of time which flows both from the past and from the future.”35 Here Yang writes of a “point” (dian 溆) that recalls the “place” (chu 嗽) where the sea stands still. He insists on a precise spatial, temporal, and inscriptive location—Sydney, 1993, Chinese writing—for a moment that then renders location itself radically indeterminate, just as the repeated zhi chu ᷳ嗽 (where) encompasses ever-expanding circles of space and time, and the poet’s precise address (dizhi ⛘⛨) explodes into “countless places” (wushu . . . didian 䃉㔠 . . . . . . ⛘溆). As his reference here to Chinese characters as “pictographs” hints, Yang also invokes what he calls Pound’s “synchronic poetic sense and . . . unique perception of the Chinese language,” thereby proposing a poetics located neither in the Chinese nor in the Western literary tradition but in a recognition of the mutually constituting relations and interferences through which both are imagined in  modernism.36 Where the Sea Stands Still reenvisages place and time as a process. Similarly, Yang’s essentialist description of the Chinese language, based on Pound’s misreading, gives way to expanding circles of interrelation. While Cayley might be considered postmodernist, his computer-based poetry also emerged out of deep engagements with Poundian modernism and traditional Chinese poetry and philosophy. And like Yang, Cayley elaborated a poetics of flux out of stasis and repetition. Cayley sought to develop a theory of networked complexity from the repetitions of Chinese poetic parallelism and Pound’s apparent search for the mot juste, “the precise definition of the word.”37 During the 1980s Cayley produced a series of articles that argued for the importance of the graphic elements of Chinese characters and their quasi-etymological connections to the poetics of Pound’s Cantos. Cayley identifies the horizontal line yi ᶨ, meaning “one” in Chinese, as the thread through which Pound linked a whole series of characters and as symbolizing a string of connections between diverse elements. This idea is expressed in Confucius’s phrase “I have a single thread binding it all together” (“yi yi guan zhi” ᶨẍ屓ᷳ), or in Pound’s translation in Guide to Kulchur, “I have reduced it all to one principle.”38 Cayley gives

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particular emphasis to Pound’s use of the character zhi 㬊, which for Pound is the “hitching post, position, place one is in and works from,” and which, as Cayley points out, “appears no less than nine times in The Cantos.” Pound idiosyncratically argued that “there is no more important technical term in the Confucian philosophy.”39 According to Cayley, the importance of the character is not in its basic meaning of “to stop,” as in the title Dahai tingzhi zhi chu ⣏㴟 㬊ᷳ嗽 (Where the Sea Stands Still), but in Pound’s association of the character with the earth (symbolized for him by the bottom horizontal stroke) and with straightness, rightness, and true direction, indicated through the character’s visual resemblance, when combined with yi ᶨ (one), to zheng 㬋, as in zhengming 㬋⎵, the Confucian concept of “correcting names,” which was so important to Pound.40 Separately authored prior to their meeting, Yang’s Where the Sea Stands Still and Cayley’s essays on Pound converge in their exploration of the interplay between flux and stasis, fluid movement and solid earth, via the character zhi 㬊. Yang contrasts and combines flux and stasis through the oxymoron of a sea that “stands still” (tingzhi  㬊) and through the juxtaposition of the moving sea with a land-based location or dizhi ⛘⛨ (address), whose second character is both visually related and phonemically identical to zhi 㬊. The character zhi 㬊, in other words, functions to bind together land and sea, stasis and movement, in Yang’s poem, just as in Pound’s idiosyncratic reading of Confucius and in Cayley’s reading of Pound, the character binds together a whole series of words and, simultaneously, stands for the act of poetic binding. Cayley concludes one of his essays on Pound with the character zhi 㬊, which Cayley presents alongside “coming to rest,” the phrase with which Pound defines the character cheng 婈: “ ‘Sincerity.’ The precise definition of the word, pictorially the sun’s lance coming to rest on the precise spot verbally.” 41 Two decades later, in a 2002 coauthored essay, Yang and Cayley quote Pound’s definition in arguing that “even this restful, stilled representation of focus, down to a single point, relies, absolutely, on an elaborate amalgam of metaphoric/symbolic and synaesthetic visual references—the sun’s lance—which, at any moment, might expand back into the complex not to say highly contradictory and necessarily incoherent ideogram of which it is a part.” 42 In the same essay, Yang and Cayley claim “that certain resources that are traditional or, as it were, interiorized in Chinese linguistic and literary culture rhyme well with many of the characteristics of

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Pound’s writing, particularly the ideogrammic method of The Cantos: spatial organization, fragmentation, parallelism, juxtaposition.” 43 Yang’s and Cayley’s readings of Pound and the Chinese tradition intersect in their collaboration, highlighting further parallelisms that produce still further forms of complexity, contradiction, and flux. In their collaboration Poundian synchronicity, timelessness, and the “precise definition of the word”— signified by the act of “coming to rest,” standing still, or zhi 㬊—combine with endless movement, as in the motion of waves on the sea. To the collaboration with Yang, Cayley brought a vision of the digital medium and its poetic uses that grew out of his engagement with the Chinese tradition and with Poundian modernism. Cayley’s first experiments in computer-based poetry had emerged from an interest, sparked by the classical Chinese quatrain, in “the possibility of exploring dynamically (in real time) non-linear aspects of a poem’s rhetorical structures, by scoring its component words and phrases in alternate orders designed to highlight such structures.” 44 For Cayley the repetitions of syntax, meaning, and sound in the parallelism of traditional Chinese regulated verse produced webs of interconnection, “associations and subsequent enrichment of meaning implied by these correspondences” that he collectively likened to “a tapestry woven in the elements of verbal music.” 45 For more than a decade prior to his collaboration with Yang, Cayley had been exploring how the “computer’s programmable screen” could represent “directly” the “tropes and figures” that he found in the parallelism of Chinese poetry and in “non-linear poetics generally,” including Pound’s Chinese-inspired “ideogrammic” poetry.46 Cayley’s early experiments with computer programming as a medium for poetry centered on the translation of a one-quatrain poem, “Dedicated to the Hermit Cui” (“Ti Cui yiren shan ting” 柴Ⲽ忠ṢⰙṕ), by Tang poet Qian Qi 拊崟. Cayley’s translation project, which he entitled Wine Flying, went through a number of iterations. He first scripted Wine Flying in the programming language Basic “on a BBC microcomputer in 1983–84.” 47 In 1988 he produced a new version of Wine Flying on a Macintosh using HyperCard, the software that became Cayley’s main tool for programmed poetry over the next decade, up to and including Where the Sea Stands Still.48 Cayley’s investigation of the network of connections and connotations embodied in the parallelisms of five-character regulated verse thus served as inspiration and prototype for the computer as a poetic medium.

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Through his reading of Pound and Chinese poetic parallelism, Cayley began experimenting with aleatoric, recursive, and multilinear programming techniques. While chance operations and multilinear pathways do not necessarily involve repetition, Cayley was particularly interested in deploying these techniques to highlight how a text could be read or reiterated in multiple ways through selection, recombination, and reordering. He used such devices to transform existing texts, as, for example, when “each letter is, in turn, replaced by any word from the given text which contains the letter being replaced.” 49 Cayley saw such iterative processes of continuous textual transformation as opposing the emerging assumptions of literary hypertext—the node-link structure that he described as “limited and sometimes self-limiting.”50 To rethink the node and link, Cayley also drew on the image of “Indra’s net,” whose recursive definition he cites in explaining his approach to programmed poetry: “a network of jewels that not only reflect[s] the images in every other jewel, but also the multiple images in the others.”51 This image from Huayan Buddhism allowed Cayley to develop an alternative to the orthodoxy of node and link and the concomitantly static vision of digital texts and global networks. Cayley’s alternative vision relied on another analogy entirely: waves of light. Like Brathwaite, Cayley turned to the metaphor of light to describe his computer-based poetic practice. Where Brathwaite spoke of “writing in light,” in the early 1990s Cayley described his programming practice as analogous to “holography,” citing the Oxford English Dictionary definition of the word hologram: “A pattern produced when light (or other radiation) reflected, diffracted, or transmitted by an object placed in a coherent beam (e.g., from a laser) is allowed to interfere with the undiffracted beam.” In “hologography,” Cayley writes, this process “is transposed from light into language,” so that linguistic “transformations are allowed to interfere with the given text.”52 The concept of “hologography” was basic to Cayley’s selfconception of computer-based poetics at the time he collaborated with Yang.53 Like Cayley, Yang chose the wave as the image for his iterative poetics. In Where the Sea Stands Still the wave figures both repetition and difference, fixed form and movement. Yang’s wave offered an alternative to the binary of fixed place and identity or placeless globalism through which modern Chinese literature was once again being imagined. Similarly,

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through the image of interfering light waves, Cayley sought to undo the fixed node-link conceptual and digital architecture of the Internet and the global imaginary. Yang and Cayley’s collaboration allowed these two uses of the wave metaphor and these two corresponding iterative poetics to intermingle, producing further patterns of interference. In holography the reflections of a single beam of light produce a pattern of differences. In Cayley’s hologographic approach a given text is continuously transformed and allowed to interact with the original, producing similar interferences. The HyperCard and HTML versions of Where the Sea Stands Still, however, lack Cayley’s signature textual manipulation and operation. For the collaboration, Yang divided the poem into fifty-nine separate sections, which correspond to the poem’s fifty-eight stanzas (the poem’s final and longest stanza is spread across two pages, hence the discrepancy), and created a physical map indicating the relationships between these stanzas (figure 3.1). Each of these pages of text is linked to four other pages (except page 58, which links only to 59, indicating that it is to be treated as part of the same unit).54 In the HTML version each page contains four links, which can be accessed by clicking the images at the top and bottom of the page and in the left- and right-hand corners (figure 3.2). One of those links (at the bottom of each page in the HTML version) always takes the reader to the next stanza as it appears in the print poem, but the other three links connect to other stanzas, so indicating limited nonlinear relations between various parts of the poem. These links open up the poem to new readings, but at the same time they also delimit and define textual units and the relationships between them in ways that threaten to restrict dynamic nonlinear readings of the poem. At a time when Cayley was rejecting such link-node structures in favor of producing collocations of words and phrases in ever-changing forms, Where the Sea Stands Still relies on predetermined links and static nodes of unchanging text presented in GIF image files and hence not subject to the manipulations that even a basic machine-readable text would allow.55 In this sense, Yang’s commitment to particular words in a particular order would seem to model the text as an inviolable object or collection of objects rather than a continuously moving wave, thus limiting the interference possibilities of Cayley and Yang’s collaboration. Yet Cayley and Yang deploy nonlinear readings, looping effects, and aleatory methods to diffract the text of Where the Sea Stands Still, interfering

FIGURE 3.1. Yang Lian’s map of the links between sections of his poem Where the Sea Stands Still, May 29, 1996. Colored pens and printed text on paper, collaged on card. 80 x 80 cm. John Cayley used this map as the basis for the link structure of his HyperCard and HTML versions of the poem. Courtesy of Yang Lian.

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FIGURE 3.2. Screenshot of a page from Cayley and Yang, Where the Sea Stands Still, HTML, http: //programmatology.shadoof.net /works/wsss/te33 .html.

with and complicating its link-node structure. If one does not click on a link, the poem is scripted to jump automatically to one of the four possible links. As is evident from the ICA performance, in the HyperCard version of the poem this link is selected at random.56 Through this simple aleatoric device, Cayley highlights how the computer program must be run for the text to be read—how the apparatus of the computer is in perpetual motion, even when it appears to reproduce static text. The poem proposes the impossible fixing of the sea’s motion. Similarly, the movements of the running HyperCard stack undo the fixity of the page. Though the HyperCard poem contains the same fixed words as the printed text, each time the program is run, the reader will encounter a new ordering—a new version or performance—of the poem. And since each nodal text links to four other nodes in a never-ending loop, these reiterations of the same text in a uniquely new order can extend indefinitely, underscoring the poetic interplay between endless repetition and perpetual change. This doubling of temporal arrest with perpetual movement is articulated in the line “now is furthest away” (䎦⛐㗗㚨态怈䘬; 3.1; figure 3.2), which is both a performative speech act that ushers in the “now” to which it refers and a statement that undoes itself. As soon as “now” is written or spoken, it is no longer now, so “now” is always “furthest away.” Yang and Cayley underscore both the immediacy and perpetual deferral of “now” in the poem by

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having more pages (fifteen in total) of the hypertext poem link to the line “now is furthest away” (page 33) than to any other page. Only two additional pages, 37 and 29, are linked from more than ten other pages (figure 3.1). Because some parts of the poem are linked much more frequently than others, if one lets the poem run, it tends at times to loop around a narrow range of stanzas. This looping effect, like the structural and word repetition in the text, generates both a sense of location in space and time and a “disruption of temporal frameworks” (characteristic of nodal repetition), which distances any claim to location.57 In Yang and Cayley’s ICA performance, for instance, the randomized selection produced a loop between pages 53 and 37, which begins, “flung in one direction a direction that never was” (㈽ℍᶨᾳ㕡⎹ˢ㰺㚱䘬㕡⎹; 3.2).58 The three repetitions of this line in quick succession emphasize both perpetual movement— Yang and Cayley read the text quite differently each time it recurs in the performance—and the elimination of spatial and temporal development, “a direction that never was.” Or as the penultimate line of page 37 puts it, “there is no time in the now” (䎦⛐墉㰺㚱㗪攻; 3.2). In the ICA performance Cayley employed four screens running two separate pathways through the program. This multiscreen setup further expanded the possibilities for presenting the text as continually reproduced out of its internal interferences, superimpositions, and differences. Screens 2 and 4 presented the Chinese and English texts that Yang and Cayley, standing in front of the screens, read in the live performance. The English text was always read first and would shift to the next nodal text slightly before the Chinese. Between the textual nodes, all four screens displayed images of the sea or sea-like paintings and large Chinese characters in various styles of calligraphy, in a visual underscoring of the link that Yang and Cayley drew between new media and Chinese inscription. Screens 1 and 3 followed the same patterns except that the text on these screens was not read aloud. In this way Cayley achieved a simple aleatoric, combinational form—comprising 3,481 possible unique permutations—where chance intersections between the nodes on screens 1 and 3 and the nodes on screens 2 and 4 could work in counterpoint or reinforcement, like the interference patterns of diffracted waves. For example, toward the end of the ICA performance, the text on screens 1 and 3 almost synchronized with 2 and 4. All four screens followed the same progression of pages from 58 to 59 to 1, before diverging again.59 Here the texts coincided—like the

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light spots on a diffraction pattern—just at the point where the text looped from its end and returned to the beginning. The staggered coincidence of these lines amid the otherwise juxtaposed texts staged the double perspective and beginning within an end expressed in the poem’s final line: “This is where we look out from the shore on ourselves setting out to sea” (4.3). Shifting back and forth between Chinese and English, the four repetitions of this final line presented location as a process: as a series of wavelike iterations. Yang and Cayley’s collaboration exemplifies two different uses of the wave metaphor and two different but intertwined lines of development in iterative poetics of the 1990s. Yang’s poem deploys wavelike repetition to reject the binaries of origins and belatedness and of singularity and imitation that have plagued discussion of modern Chinese literature. Instead, Yang transforms repetition from a problem into a poetics that undoes the fixity of spatial, temporal, and cultural location. Cayley deploys the reiterative combinatorial possibilities of computer programming to undo a similar fixity in the calcifying digital and conceptual structure of the World Wide Web. The collaboration in turn mixes these two modes of repetition, producing a new poetic text. Yang and Cayley’s collaboration demonstrates the problem with attempts to pinpoint cultural or geographical location or the direction of literary influences. We might think we can simply study the progress of one cultural form, such as modernism, as it passes into a new medium, place, language, or culture. Yet Yang and Cayley’s collaboration cannot simply be thought of as an example of the wave of Euro-American modernism pulsing through various cultures and media and engulfing Chinese and other non-European traditions. Their collaboration and the lines of literary historical development that lie behind it weave in and out of Chinese and Western traditions and modernisms, including 1980s Chinese modernism’s engagement with the Chinese literary tradition, the globe-trotting of Yang and other Chinese writers and artists after 1989, and the use of Chinese regulated verse and Poundian modernism to develop a poetics of the computer. A model that stresses the singularity of Chinese modernism or Western modernism is also insufficient. So, too, is a model of cultural circulation, of webs or networks. For where is the original site from which a work like Where the Sea Stands Still circulates: Beijing, Sydney, London, Hong Kong,

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or the World Wide Web? And what is its original language: Chinese, English, or machine code? The digital text is instead born in translation and out of multiple waves of mutually transforming encounter. Each apparently discrete location or medium—from the Chinese script to the computer screen—is itself the product of interweaving processes and histories of cross-cultural reading. To think such complex histories, we need, with world-systems theorists, to register the interference patterns generated out of waves of repetition as one form (classical Chinese poetry or Poundian modernism) passes into new contexts and media. We also need, with network theorists, to recognize the complex and multiple pathways of relation that constitute contemporary literature and unsettle the temporal and spatial hierarchies of centers and peripheries, originality and belatedness. But Cayley’s and Yang’s iterating waves also offer a way of understanding cultural propagation that undoes the overly static view of place, language, and medium in both of these current theories of world literature. As Where the Sea Stands Still illustrates, we need the double vision to see each singular instance of modernism and its many wavelike iterations: to see literary history neither as a series of isolated events nor merely as a history of influence. But we can only do this if we stop thinking about place, language, culture, and tradition and about medium (print, digital, or oral) as the fixed background through which the modernist wave propagates. We instead need to treat such apparently fixed objects as “China” or “digital literature” as in themselves wavelike processes, whose mutual interferences are registered in the diffraction patterns of individual literary works. Physicists gave us waves without a medium and waves that are also particles. The intermingling and mutually constituting set of relations that I have traced in Yang’s and Cayley’s iterative turn suggests the need for a similar sea change in literary studies: a fundamental rethinking of the concepts of location and medium in Chinese and global modernism.

Chapter Four

SHIBBOLETH The Border Crossings of Caroline Bergvall, Performance Writing, and Iterative Poetics

In the Bible shibboleth was the Hebrew word that Jephthah used to distinguish the fleeing Ephraimites from his own people, the Gileadites.1 Those who failed to pronounce the sh correctly were massacred. In the so-called parsley massacre, Haitian migrants were shot because they could not roll their r’s when pronouncing the Spanish word for parsley, perejil. The title of Caroline Bergvall’s installation work Say: “Parsley” (2001) refers to this infamous test. For Say: “Parsley” Bergvall recorded a range of people whose accents represented some of the linguistic diversity of English in the United Kingdom at the turn of the millennium. In asking these people to repeat various phrases, Bergvall recalled the repetition of words under duress in the systematic exclusions of shibboleth. She also implicated her audience in this system of exclusion and prejudice. The gallery installation was audioengineered so that these voice recordings elicited “mishearings and personal associations.”2 Those who attended the installation described how their mishearings revealed their own linguistic backgrounds and unconscious prejudices.3 Say: “Parsley” highlights and draws on one origin of the iterative turn: what I have termed postcolonial media. Like Kamau Brathwaite, Bergvall in Say: “Parsley”—and in her later Meddle English (2011) and Drift (2014) projects—intertwines inscriptive technologies with the politics of cultural difference through the poetics of repetition. In Meddle English Bergvall

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acknowledges the influence of Brathwaite’s work by citing his “Sycorax video-style”: his use of the computer to produce visually varied poems with complex layouts and combinations of fonts and text sizes. For Bergvall, Brathwaite’s video-style merges postcolonial memory with new media: the Caribbean history of “enforced migratory displacement” with the reimagining of “the work of writing in a more performative and locative manner.” His digital renditions seek alternative “memory structures” in the face of memory loss, both individual and historical.4 A decade earlier, Bergvall had already adopted Brathwaite’s characteristic merger of the iterative possibilities of inscriptive technologies with the personal and historical memory that the voice embodies. Say: “Parsley” echoes Brathwaite’s “Nametracks,” which as we have seen was one of the first poems that Brathwaite subjected to graphic versioning. In the text version of Say: “Parsley,” Bergvall includes a series of imperatives to “say” certain words. These imperatives recall Brathwaite’s refrain “ogrady says” and the white slave master ogrady’s accompanying demand that the black subject “say” standard English words. Brathwaite and Bergvall in turn derive these repeated imperatives from the Simon Says children’s game, which they intertwine with the enforced homogenization of shibboleth. Like Brathwaite, Bergvall reveals the potential for persecution in something as apparently innocent as the collaborative activity of a children’s game and the ability of simple repetition to engage the complexities of new media and the cultural and linguistic exclusions of our unequal world. Bergvall engages the linguistic and bodily exclusions of nationalism, migration, and tradition through a poetry of repetition that is itself the product of several intertwined journeys, including Bergvall’s own linguistic migration to English from her childhood languages of French and Norwegian, shifts in feminist poetics and cultural theory, and changes in cultural traffic wrought by new media, marketization, and globalization. These journeys reveal not only how copying became a cultural correlative of our digital and global age but also how British and North American poetry’s iterative turn came partly from elsewhere: from feminist theory, and from the mix of new media and cross-cultural poetics seen in both Brathwaite’s poetry and Yang Lian and John Cayley’s collaboration. Though less a case of direct influence, Prigov’s samizdat copy poetics also anticipates Bergvall’s application of postconceptual art to poetry and her use of repetition to explore the singular bodily gesture within the constraints of a seemingly

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all-powerful system. Bergvall explores the migrations of languages and people in our age of globalization and the Internet, but her work has also contributed to another form of cultural migration: she played a crucial role in synthesizing these earlier tendencies and catalyzing further developments that brought iteration to the center of Anglo-American poetry. To tell Bergvall’s story, then, is to trace one history of the iterative turn. Whether an artistic tendency is recognized or ignored depends on systems of power, prestige, and on the wider circumstances of the society in which it appears. While we would be wrong—as Yang and Cayley’s collaboration demonstrates—to characterize the iterative turn as a single linear development, we can still recognize Bergvall’s role in making that tendency legible to an influential sector of the Anglo-American avant-garde. Iterative strategies previously deployed in a range of work from the Caribbean to the Soviet Union came to be seen anew through a set of practices that Bergvall would make recognizable under the name of performance writing. Performance writing drew attention partly because it dovetailed with the undermining of traditional conceptions of literature in the digital age, with the demand for new kinds of flexible work practices that emerged in the network economy of the 1990s, and with the concomitant pressure on educational institutions to adapt to the economic and cultural imperatives of the networked world. But performance writing also became an influential and legible marker of the turn to repetition because of its prominence at the centers of the Anglophone literary world: in London and, later, among influential avant-garde circles in the United States. If Bergvall’s poetry often interrogates recurring regimes of exclusion—from biblical shibboleth to the racism encountered by today’s migrants—the history of performance writing reveals a similar system of unequal cultural recognition. Not long after her own migration to the United Kingdom in 1989, Bergvall began to develop an iterative practice predicated on the idea that writing and speech are always articulated in a particular context and medium, and in and through a particular body. In other words, it makes a difference who speaks where, when, and in what medium. As Bergvall’s own work emphasizes, when the same word—or the same poetic device—is repeated, it is not always perceived in the same way. In other words, performance writing both exemplifies and interrogates the recurrence in our contemporary copy culture of that ancient and exclusionary iterative practice: shibboleth.

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PERFORMANCE WRITING

The term derives from the performance writing degree program established at Dartington College of Arts in 1992 under the initial directorship of John Hall.5 Put most simply, performance writing applied Dartington’s emphasis on the performing arts and on cross-art collaboration to writing. Performance writing took the act of embodiment in performance, so fundamental to theater (and other performing arts), and applied it to writing, not often thought of as a performance. As director of performance writing from 1995 to 2001, Bergvall helped make the program a focal point for writing that shared many of the qualities that I have termed iterative poetics, including the generative use of existing text, the repetition of the same text across multiple media, and the view that iteration can enable an open-ended form of both textual practice and cultural identity. Performance writing provided impetus and a shared identity for already emerging iterative practices that seemed not to fit within existing frameworks. During Bergvall’s tenure, for example, Cayley would make several contributions to the performance writing program. His appointment to an honorary fellowship at Dartington in 2000 served to underscore the retrospective placement of his explorations of writing and performance across media under the sign of performance writing. Cayley’s Wine Flying, for instance, was published as a conventional book in 1989, but also as a HyperCard stack on floppy disk in various iterations in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and as an installation artwork in London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1991. By stressing the writer’s attention to the material conditions of each instantiation of a text, performance writing helped explain Cayley’s repetitions of the same translated text across multiple media and sites. Cayley’s Wine Flying also fits with performance writing’s treatment of reading as performance, an idea given impetus and shape by the rise and proliferation of digital technology in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In the print version of Wine Flying from 1989, for example, Cayley likens the running of his computer-programmed poetry to a performance, describing “a machine-driven version of these and other similar adaptations in which the timing of the readings can also be ‘scored’ such that they become like brief poetic performances.” 6 By 1997, when Cayley created not just a digital text but a multimedia performance event at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, performance writing provided a body of theory and practice

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through which a multimedia poetic work such as Yang and Cayley’s Where the Sea Stands Still could be produced and understood.7 Performance writing rose to prominence because it responded to changes not only in aesthetic practice and media but also in economics. It emerged in relation to the rise of digital media and the network economy, and in response to neoliberal reforms, including changes in tertiary education, workplace practices, and the cultural industries. Performance writing was established as part of a series of reforms implemented at Dartington after 1990, when the college faced a financial crisis. The crisis was precipitated by the Thatcher government’s neoliberal reforms, in particular Kenneth Baker’s 1988 Education Reform Act, which transformed higher education institutions into body corporates.8 In response to the crisis, the college was “directed to safeguard its survival by specialising in Performance,” and performance became one of a series of marketable generic skills emphasized in the new interdisciplinary degree structure. The term performance writing had been used at Dartington as early as 1987 “when Theatre tutor Ric Allsopp coined it as a writing option apart from scriptwriting as such.” The term was therefore available to answer the demand after 1990 for a focus on the generic skill of performance while providing courses in writing, which were seen as popular with students.9 On one level, the performance writing program responded to specific institutional pressures to maintain Dartington’s focus on performing arts and to stress the college’s experimental and interart ethos by avoiding the existing institutionalized term creative writing, which named an already known and defined field and set of teaching practices.10 On another level, the program responded to external pressure to provide instruction in theory and academic writing in order to maintain the college’s degree-granting status.11 It also reflected Dartington’s tradition of interart collaboration. Prior to the Second World War, the original Dartington Hall School, established by Dorothy Whitney and Leonard Elmhirst, had attracted artists such as Willi Soukop, dancers such as Kurt Jooss, and writers such as Rabindranath Tagore. Founded in 1961, Dartington College soon extended this tradition, notably through the celebrated mid-1960s interart collaboration at the college involving John Cage, David Tudor, Robert Rauschenberg, Merce Cunningham, and Cunningham’s dance company.12 In a sense, performance writing adapted this 1960s neo-avant-garde tradition to the

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neoliberal emphasis on customer demand, generic skills, and technological literacy. By stressing an interdisciplinary and collaborative field of writing, Hall and Bergvall anticipated how avant-garde Anglophone poetry in the 2000s would come to adopt aspects of the emphasis on the generic skills of management, teamwork, and interdisciplinary thinking in the network economy. Rejecting “the ‘literary’ as the prime seat of textuality,” Bergvall presented performance writing in 1999, near the height of the dot-com bubble, as “doing writing in relation to contemporary means of communication” in a way that was “interdependent with current social contexts of readability and circulation.”13 Underscoring the importance of “contemporary means of communication,” “digital” writing was one of the “five modes” of writing taught within the curriculum, which also included live, visual, sonic, and page-based writing. These modes emphasized technological skills such as using “internet hypertext” and “learning how to use a recording studio.”14 In line with the emphasis on new technologies, in the 1990s Dartington transformed its existing recording studio into the Performance Technology Centre. As Hall later commented, “An option that did not occur to us at the time, but which could no doubt be made attractive to some senior managers in higher education, was a version of PW conceived as preparation—even training—for careers as writing specialists within the ‘cultural industries.’ ”15 Whether consciously or not, Bergvall and Hall created a program that was well suited to “the flexible ‘team’ organization normative in the business world” because of its stress on writing across a wide range of media, its celebration of “the breakdown of old institutional divisions” such as literature and creative writing, art and theater, and its emphasis on collaboration.16 The rise of performance writing in the United Kingdom also chimes with the coming to power of New Labour in 1997 and the new government’s emphasis on the so-called creative economy. New Labour’s cultural policy presented “artists as models of contentedly flexible and self-managed workers” and gave “support for cultural diversity as a means of growing cultural markets.”17 Bergvall similarly presented performance writing as responding to the need for workers in the creative economy to develop flexible, culturally and technologically responsive approaches to writing and culture. She writes of seeking “multimodular training,” “new literacy tools,”

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and new forms of “cultural literacy” in the context of “the displacement of literature as a dominant artform” and the “diversification of writing.”18 Bergvall presented performance writing in the language of the new network economy, even as she developed a creative practice that troubled the ideology of endless adaptability by insisting on the particularities and resistances of medium, cultural context, and the human body. In this respect, Bergvall’s approach resembles but also differs from another aesthetic correlative of the creative economy: esthétique relationnelle, or relational aesthetics. Coined in 1998 by Nicolas Bourriaud, the term describes a tendency in 1990s installation and performance art.19 Relational aesthetics emphasized “intersubjective relations over detached opticality.”20 Unlike earlier avantgarde tendencies like Fluxus and conceptual art, however, relational aesthetics arguably sat “comfortably within an ideal of subjectivity as whole and of community as immanent togetherness,” thereby dovetailing with New Labour’s emphasis on an “inclusive society of active cultural consumers.”21 Like relational aesthetics, performance writing emphasized intersubjective relations and seemingly echoed the creative-economy rhetoric of flexible diversity. Bergvall viewed the text as a “site” or “event” for interaction between the text and the reader/audience, who was also a performer.22 Like relational aesthetics, the performance writing of Bergvall and others frequently took the form of performance or installation art. Some works of performance writing, such as cris cheek’s Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (2005), might also be read, like some forms of relational aesthetics, as uncritically embodying community togetherness.23 In Coleridge, cheek produces a thoroughly iterative text: an audio recording of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner in which each line is read by a different student or staff member from Coleridge High School in Cambridge, England. Coleridge thereby performs a multicultural community of many accents who nevertheless form a collective subject through their shared embodiment of a canonical text of English literature. Cheek simultaneously undermines the collective subject of English multiculturalism through the many-accented audio text and the siting of the recording in a school under threat of closure. Many of the voices embody fear, insecurity, a sense of how difficult it is to speak on demand lines that are not their own, to speak in an institution. However, Coleridge is ultimately more affirming than discomforting. Coleridge, in other words, is vulnerable to Claire Bishop’s critique of

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relational aesthetics for its emphasis on a nonconfrontational shared intersubjective relationship rather than on the differences and antagonisms that attend the diverse responses of viewers or readers.24 The readers in Coleridge are, as in the shibboleth test, forced to repeat words that are not their own— that come from a canon from which many of them have been systematically excluded. But the history of violence that underlies this collective text remains only implicit. Bergvall’s performance writing, however, seems closer to the contemporaneous art of “relational antagonism” that Bishop identifies as drawing on relational aesthetics while opposing its elision of difference and cultural conflict.25 Say: “Parsley,” for instance, emphasizes not just the collective voice of many accents but racial and cultural exclusion. Here the body and its voicing of language reveal the competing possibilities of repetition: as both enforcing conformity and illuminating the differences in even the most seemingly exact reiteration. Bergvall’s own account of performance writing cites earlier examples of iterative poetics, especially the work of Gertrude Stein, who conceived of iterations not as repetitions but as always unique “insistences.”26 Bergvall’s first fully realized performance writing work, Eclát (1996), was built around quotations from Stein’s Tender Buttons. In the same year, her keynote address to the first symposium on performance writing began with Bergvall explicitly doing “a Gertrude Stein” on the concept at hand: what is Performance Writing not? Is Performance Writing not writing? Is it writing which performs not writes? Is it not performance which writes? But then does writing not perform? And when does writing not perform? And what kind of not performance are we talking about? Is it not performance to write or is it not writing to not perform?27

For Bergvall, these interrogative iterations do not “stabilise any answer particularly but . . . hopefully guarantee that it doesn’t get looped into itself prior to the question being fully asked.”28 Iteration becomes a way to avoid repetition and homogenization. It functions as insistence, transformation,

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a demonstration of how a system that seems to entrap might be a source of endless permutation and so of difference. Dartington’s performance writing program and Bergvall’s active promotion of the concept helped catalyze and unify a range of tendencies that in retrospect seem commonplaces of 1990s poetry, including collaboration, site-specific writing, and the increasing exploration of digital media. Alongside Bergvall, writers such as Cayley and cheek made contributions, sharing and developing their own multimedia performance practices.29 In his work, cheek makes extensive use of sound, amplification, and audio reproduction technologies, and he collaborated with Bergvall not just in teaching but also as a publisher of and commentator on her work and on the concept of performance writing.30 Cayley’s connection to performance writing dates at least to 1996, when he attended the inaugural symposium on performance writing. In the following years, Cayley contributed to Dartington’s program as an occasional guest lecturer and also collaborated with Bergvall on Noth’rs, a HyperCard piece for which Bergvall supplied texts and voice-over.31 The collaborative and institutional origins of performance writing are reflected in its transnational spread. Contributors to Dartington’s performance writing program would go on to establish or contribute to writing programs that extended the iterative, multimedia practice of performance writing. Significant teacher-practitioners include Cayley at Brown University, cheek at Miami University in Ohio, and Redell Olsen, who lectured in performance writing at Dartington in the early 2000s. She later moved to Royal Holloway, University of London, where she founded the influential MA in poetic practice. From early on, performance writing exerted an influence across the Atlantic thanks to the 1996 conference Assembling Alternatives. Held in New Hampshire and organized by Romana Huk, the conference introduced Bergvall, cheek, Cayley, and performance writing to a number of US experimental writers and teachers, including Charles Bernstein, Bob Perelman, and Carla Harryman. Later, in her introduction to the book publication from the conference, Huk singled out performance writing as a key development in contemporary poetry.32 Partly through Huk’s networking and advocacy, performance writing contributed to the iterative turn in North American Anglophone poetry.

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Performance writing provided a name for a range of iterative poetic tendencies that sought to reintroduce the body and performance as central sites for poetic exploration in Anglo-American avant-garde poetry. Performance writing built on the strong tradition of performance and multimedia poetics in the work of Anglophone writers on both sides of the Atlantic, from John Cage to Amiri Baraka, Kamau Brathwaite to Carla Harryman, and bpNichol to Bob Cobbing and Julie Patton. Performance writing helped name and consolidate a turn away from the tendency to privilege the text over the body, a tendency evident among avant-garde poets of the previous generation on both sides of the Atlantic. Performance writing announced a rejection of the suspicion of speech and performance in Language writing, which had been founded partly under the banner of Robert Grenier’s statement “I hate speech.”33 The founder of the performance writing program, Hall, had studied at Cambridge under J.  H. Prynne, who likewise favored the print page as a site for poetry. Hall’s stress on performance, extended by Bergvall, anticipated and contributed to the performance and multimedia practice of younger writers such as Olsen, Keston Sutherland, Marianne Morris, and Emily Critchley, who had all had contact with Prynne and Cambridge’s influential avant-garde poetry scene. Like the device of iteration, performance writing was caught between entrapping repetition and difference: it was an avant-garde practice formed out of economic and political demands for flexible creativity in the neoliberal network economy; but it was also a vehicle for poets like Bergvall to highlight the violent contortions wrought by such enforced repetition. In Bergvall’s hands, performance writing brought together a range of iterative poetic practices and made them more palatable and prominent by articulating them in the accent of 1990s network culture and of the creative economy. But Bergvall’s work also highlighted the resistances, violent contortions, and cultural shibboleths hidden in the rhetoric of unbound creative flexibility. In her work the body is marked by both physical constraints— evident in a voiceprint or in the limits of a body’s ability to literally bend over backward—and representational violence: the externally imposed prejudices placed on a body because of its supposed gender, race, sexuality, and so on. Even as performance writing grew out of the demand for literature to adapt to the needs of the creative and network economies, it also

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highlighted the limits posed by the body to the fantasy of total economic, political, and textual freedom. BODY TEXT

In emphasizing the body, Bergvall questioned both the celebration of unbound freedom in the creative network economy and the privileging of textual materiality in avant-garde poetry. While Language writing disavowed lyric self-expression, it arguably replaced it with another form of authenticity or sincerity: “radical particularity.”34 By juxtaposing “myriad particulars” of text, Language writers sought to highlight the “materiality of language.”35 Partly through the influence of Language writing, the emphasis on “the materiality of the text . . . as an alternative to the meaning of the text” in some avant-garde poetry gave way in some feminist avantgarde practice to “an even more literal connection between the text and the body” such that “formal innovation” became the “technology” through which “female experience” was redescribed as a “distinctive female body.” Thus “even though the . . . commitment to women as formal innovators” is “accompanied by a critique of essentialism and a celebration of the performative,” it is arguable that “the logical basis of its agenda is utterly and literally essentialist.”36 Feminist Anglophone writers such as Rachel Blau DuPlessis, whom Bergvall cites extensively in an early essay on feminism and poetics, celebrate the potential of radically disruptive linguistic form to overcome the binary logic of gender.37 Yet even as writers like DuPlessis explicitly reject gender essentialism, they associate such disruptiveness with feminist poetics in a way that threatens to extend rather than critique the gendering of textual subversion.38 Bergvall turned to repetition in part to address the tension between and conflation of textual and embodied accounts of gender in feminist theory. Already in the early 1990s, Bergvall was citing the argument, put forward by scholars such as Rita Felski, that to affirm a “necessary connection between feminism and experimental form” risks reproducing rather than questioning gender binaries.39 On the one hand, Bergvall notes that “the great majority of feminist literary criticism is still suspicious of experimental writing and tackles with more eagerness ideas of representation than ideas of displacement.” 40 On the other, she attacks the approach whereby “experimental writing per se becomes ‘feminine,’” citing Felski’s criticism of

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the tendency to locate “liberation . . . in the realm of textual subversion, resulting in a linguistic idealism.” 41 Around this time, Bergvall also affirmed Monique Wittig’s similar critique of the notion of a “specifically feminine writing which would mirror a specifically female experience” and of the concept of écriture féminine as “an intensification . . . of the antagonistic dualism already in practice.” 42 Bergvall sought to complicate the celebration of textual subversion by emphasizing the repetitions of the body and of old and new media. In an essay first given as a talk at the 1996 Assembling Alternatives conference, Bergvall describes repetition as a means to conflate “the act of marking, inscribing the page and that of the . . . body.” She identifies the “mark of writing” in Francis Ponge’s Comment une figue de paroles et pourquoi (How a Fig of Utterance and Why), which comprises sixty-nine drafts of a single poem. Ponge presents “the act and impact of writing not at any one, finite, point of completion but rather at its many instances of production.” These iterated drafts “retain,” for Bergvall, “the authorial physical presence in the text.” Here Bergvall alludes to Jacques Derrida’s essay “Signature événement contexte” (“Signature Event Context”) in which he introduces the concept of “iterability” to explain how writing complicates J.  L. Austin’s theory of the speech act.43 In treating writing as an embodied performance, Bergvall adapts and adopts aspects of both Derrida’s and Austin’s seemingly contradictory accounts of the speech act. Derrida attacks Austin’s idea that meaning can be fixed by the context of an utterance. He argues that Austin’s view is the result of his privileging of speech over inscription. In writing, Derrida claims, contextual dependency leads instead to a radical unfixing of meaning, since context shifts continuously from reading to reading. Bergvall combines and implicitly questions both Austin’s and Derrida’s views. On the one hand, she reaffirms Austin’s stress on the speech act and rejects Derrida’s privileging of writing over speech. On the other hand, she adopts Derrida’s emphasis on the shifting meanings that are produced by the iterability and hence the context variability of language. In a sense, Bergvall takes the debate full circle by treating the embodied speech act as the condition of all scripted as well as spoken utterance. Yet iteration allows Bergvall to avoid essentializing either the material text or the body. Instead, for Bergvall, each “material and contextual” occasion of speech, writing, listening, or reading becomes a performance, producing a myriad of what she terms “variations” or “versionings.” 44

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In the late 1990s and early 2000s Bergvall deployed repetition and versioning to critically engage the equation of radical formal innovation with the female body in works such as “Goan Atom (Doll)” (1999) and Flèsh a Coeur (2000).45 In “Goan Atom (Doll)” Bergvall highlights the violent contortions—and sometimes literal bending over backward—that accompany the avant-garde conflation of textual freedom with bodily manipulation, contortions that implicitly parallel the enforced conditions of creative flexibility out of which performance writing was born. “Goan Atom (Doll)” responds to an extreme and explicit example of the equation of the female body with avant-garde formal disruptiveness: surrealist Hans Bellmer’s construction of a life-sized female doll, which he photographed in various strange positions, and his collaboration with Alicia Zürn. Zürn and Bellmer presented Zürn’s anagrammatic texts as analogous to the variously rearranged body parts of the doll and to Zürn’s own body, which Bellmer tied up with strings and photographed in equally bizarre positions. In “Goan Atom (Doll)” Bergvall echoes the punning, anagrammatic, and erotic images and texts of Bellmer and Zürn: here Dolly goodolly in a ny shape or form46

Highlighting the conflation of avant-garde form with the female body, Bergvall connects the doll as a sexualized object to Form Form Form one hardened core after another47

Bergvall implies a connection between avant-garde writing and hardcore (“hardened core”) porn—a word that slant rhymes with “form.” On the one hand, the repeated word “form” might underscore the difference Stein found in each “insistence” of the same repeated word and hence writing’s liberating ability to continuously change: to take “a / ny shape or form.” On the other hand, this shapeshifting image also registers the repetitions of stereotype: the contorted female body—forced to take “a / ny

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shape or form”—conforms to an unchanging “hardened core” of pornographic imagery. Bergvall thereby connects the repeated depictions of the doll and female body as passive sexualized objects to the manipulations of anagrammatic form: Sgot a wides lit down the lily sgot avide slot donne a lolly to a head less cin dy slots in48

Just as the “head / less cin / dy” doll can be manipulated into “a / ny shape or form,” the reader can manipulate the letters to make the words “wide slit” from “wides lit” or “a wide slot” from “avide slot.” In connecting the anagrammatic form of the poem to the rearrangement of the body, Bergvall apparently riffs on Judith Butler’s conception of how the gendered body is produced through acts and gestures that operate “on the surface of the body.” In this context, Butler also cites the “radical remembering of the body in Wittig’s The Lesbian Body,” a text to which Bergvall repeatedly appeals in her work.49 Butler argues that by performing our bodies differently we can effectively rewrite them: “Those sexual practices in both homosexual and heterosexual contexts that open surfaces and orifices to erotic signification or close down others effectively reinscribe the boundaries of the body along new cultural lines.”50 Bergvall extends Butler’s apparent conflation of bodily orifices and language. In addition to her anagrammatic play on words such as “slit” and “slot,” she deploys interlingual puns, such as “Cuillère des spoons orifficielles,” which appears in the opening pages of “Goan Atom (Doll).”51 Recalling Butler, Bergvall’s pun implies a connection between the normative use of orifices in heterosexual sex and the normative speech of official languages (langues officielles). Through her interlingual pun or partial anagram, Bergvall undermines the official languages of Standard French and Standard English (already mixed up earlier in the same line in “Cuillère des spoons”). Simultaneously, she

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suggests nonnormative sexual connection. She intermingles tongues (langues) and erotic orifices (“orifficielles”) and implies the further double entendre of spooning, both an old-fashioned term for heterosexual courtship and a current term for a nonnormative sexual position. Bergvall here would seem to extend Butler’s emphasis on the iterative nature of language as the only viable source of gender subversion and political agency. Drawing, like Bergvall, on Derrida’s account of iterability in “Signature Event Context,” Butler claims that conventional notions of sex and gender are always “citational”: they are produced through “a reiteration of a norm or set of norms.”52 These norms include the “forcible and reiterative practice of regulatory sexual regimes,” and they set “limits to what will qualify as a body.”53 Butler, in other words, describes gender as a fiction produced and stabilized through repeated performances: the “gendered self” is “structured by repeated acts” or the “stylized repetition of acts through time.” But as with other normative social practices, Butler identifies resistance to gender norms in the “possibility of a failure to repeat, a de-formity, or a parodic repetition.” These performances reinscribe or repeat with difference.54 For Butler, “ ‘agency,’ then, is to be located within the possibility of a variation on that repetition.”55 The formal devices that Bergvall privileges—anagrams, puns, misspellings, mispronunciations, linguistic interference, and accent—are all examples of the subversive, iterative practice that Butler advocates. However, Bergvall also implicitly questions Butler’s account of gender and the body and her location of agency in iteration, or imperfect repetition. On the one hand, Bergvall emphasizes the violent, misogynistic possibilities of anagrammatic form and bodily manipulation. On the other hand, Bergvall diverges from Butler’s account of gender, body, and agency by emphasizing the affective and bodily dimensions of linguistic and inscriptive repetition. According to Butler, our notions of the body are purely citational, and we can only see the body differently by “deviating the citational chain.”56 But, Bergvall emphasizes, these acts of citation always take place in and through the body: they are gestural—oral, aural, and performed. Bergvall’s practice underscores that “the experience of recombination can itself produce kinesthetic knowledge; the subject not only recombines existing elements of programs (enunciative positions) but also experiences the elements of these programs on the order of movement.”57 In other words, whereas Butler emphasizes the body as text, Bergvall equally

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explores the text as body: what we say and do shapes our understandings of bodies, but our bodies also shape what we say and do. For Bergvall language is always experienced through the body, through the orifices of mouth, ears, and eyes and even through touch. Bergvall emphasizes her bodily relationship to her poem through her frequent use of French–English puns, puns that depend on her bilingualism and on the French lilt to her English pronunciation, audible in live readings and recordings of the poem. Whereas Butler criticizes the tendency in Western thought to treat the body as a concept prior to language, we can see through Bergvall that the inverse criticism might equally be leveled at Butler’s tendency to treat language as prior to the body.58 Hence Bergvall stresses the enmeshment of language and body in speech. She emphasizes how treating language as prior to the body obscures the complex interactions between body and text—as in shibboleth, where the enunciation of words takes precedence over what is said. Bergvall explores the entanglement of text and body in the entrapping repetitions not just of gender and linguistic norms but also of the deviations from those norms celebrated in much avant-garde practice. Although “Goan Atom (Doll)” deploys polysemy and radical openness to multiple interpretations, it differs from the “open text” of Language writing or many forms of avant-garde feminist poetics partly because of Bergvall’s more antagonistic approach to text, performance, and audience. Yes, as in the open text of Language writing, the audience is invited to play with the poem in its various forms and sites.59 These sites and forms include the print page, live performance, audio recordings of the text, and the reproduction of photographed overlaid transparencies of images and parts of the text that preface the version of “Goan Atom (Doll)” in Meddle English. In each instance, however, the freedom to play with the text comes with a catch: the audience or reader must choose how to respond to a provocative mixture of come-on lines, eroticism, and disturbingly violent objectification. Like Language writer Bruce Andrews in works such as Give Em Enough Rope, Bergvall presents textual clichés that make it difficult for the reader to distinguish between the text as a diagnosis of pernicious social norms and the text as a symptom of those norms.60 Andrews targets the cut-up disjunctive form of mass media images and texts by creating a poem that is equally formally disjunctive. Bergvall extends this approach whereby the formal disruptions of the text do not so much subvert the images and discourse that they criticize as mimic them. Whereas Andrews’s approach

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remains primarily discursive, however, Bergvall induces further discomfort by focusing on the body. She mixes presented and disavowed objectifications of the female body; emphasizes the writer’s and reader’s embodied, gendered, and linguistic positions; and connects these bodies to the anagrammatic form of Bellmer’s doll and Zürn’s texts. We can see how Bergvall’s intertwinement of text and body differs from some otherwise similar forms of feminist avant-garde poetics by comparing her text with DuPlessis’s “Draft 101: Puppet Opera.” 61 Like Bergvall, DuPlessis emphasizes the feminist rewriting of radical modernist experimentation, the figure of the doll or puppet, and performance (the poem is scripted and performed by DuPlessis as a dialogue).62 Like Bergvall, DuPlessis also begins with an epigraph from Marcel Duchamp, whose Large Glass is the poem’s key intertext. However, there are also significant differences. DuPlessis’s dialogue tells the story of the liberation of two puppets who cease to be manipulated by hands or strings: the “bride stripped bare” escapes from her strings and her stuck position in Duchamp’s work with the help of a male hand puppet, whom she simultaneously helps free from the hand’s manipulation. At the same time, through their playful, punning manipulation of language, both figures manage to free themselves from their limiting gender roles. In Bergvall’s work, however, there are always strings attached. While Bergvall similarly invites the reader to play with her text’s punningly rearranged letters and with gender roles, the ultimate results are far more ambivalent. For example, “Sgot uP / Elvis” could be read as “has got up Elvis” or “has got a pelvis,” and the interplay of these readings suggests both male and female genitalia: either—in the context of the poem’s ongoing descriptions of female dolls’ body parts—a female doll’s “pelvis” or the pelvis of a male subject who “has got [it] up,” with the suggestion of the gyrating eroticism of the rock-and-roll star Elvis.63 Like DuPlessis’s playful regendering of her puppets, such punning anagrammatic lines seem to  give the reader a measure of freedom. However, they also recall how Bergvall links “Unica Zürn’s obsession with textual anagrams” to Bellmer’s photographs of Zürn’s “folded tied-up body as sculpted dehumanized mass.” 64 Bellmer treated his life-sized doll and Zürn’s own body as objectified body parts to be manipulated. And he explicitly drew the analogy between textual anagrams and the rearranged body parts of his doll and of Zürn: “I tried to rearrange the sexual elements of a girl’s body like a sort of

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plastic anagram.” 65 In Bergvall’s poem the reader is called on to manipulate the text and rearrange its parts in order to produce an interpretation. The reader thereby performs an act that repeats Bellmer’s manipulations and so extends the objectification and manipulation of the doll or the woman’s body. In commenting on the poem, Bergvall underscores the ethical and interpretative problem faced by the reader. She emphasizes that the “nasty” and “repulsive” quality of Bellmer’s work lies not just at the thematic level of “narrative” but in its form: “the repulsive can be formal. The repulsive can be part of the form without addressing the politics of the object relations.” 66 Bergvall frames “Goan Atom (Doll)” as being in antagonistic relation with the formal experimentation of the anagrammatic text and body. Bergvall thus questions the reader’s or audience’s role in extending the anagrammatic form by reassembling the text in an interpretation—by finding, for example, “pelvis” in “Elvis” or a “wide slit” in “wides lit.” Bergvall presents the anagrammatic text—and so iteration—ambivalently. On the one hand, like Butler she locates a feminist poetics in acts of subversive repetition with difference, in the puns and anagrams that suggest the mutability of the body and of gender. On the other, Bergvall explores the difficulty of separating subversive repetition from the forcible repetition of gender norms. She links avant-garde anagrammatic play to Zürn’s contorted body and so to the representational and physical violence that accompanies the objectification of women’s bodies. In helping to reintroduce the body into avant-garde poetics, Bergvall highlighted the inadequacy of purely textual or bodily accounts of gender, identity, and poetry. Instead, she signaled the entanglement of body and text in the performance of writing. We might fantasize about unlimited textual or bodily freedom, Bergvall’s work implies, but we are in reality limited by our own bodies and by the representational and physical contortions to which they are subject. What shape, she asks, do bodies and texts take when confronted with the painfully contradictory social and economic demands of normative identity and creative flexibility? HABEAS CORPUS

Sometimes these demands are so great that people’s bodies and stories may not be recognized at all. Migrants, for instance, seek to creatively adapt to

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political and economic pressures beyond their control, but their journeys are regularly confounded by the highly policed and inflexible borders of enforced national identity. Lost in the dark places of extraterritoriality, these migrants become legal nobodies. They are often detained indefinitely without trial, without the right to habeas corpus. They also frequently face a political and legal indifference that at its worst is tantamount to murder. On March 27, 2011, for example, a small rubber boat containing seventy-two people set out from the Libyan coast aiming for Italy. The boat soon got into difficulty and began to drift. Despite repeated aerial and maritime reconnaissance by European aircraft and vessels, including NATO forces, the migrants’ appeals for help went unheeded. Only ten people made it back to the Libyan coast alive, and several others died soon afterward. These African travelers lost their lives due to the callous disregard of the Europeans whose help they sought.67 This horrific story provides the impetus for Bergvall’s Drift (2014).68 In Drift Bergvall extends Yang and Cayley’s use of the sea as a figure for our increasingly global interconnections, while she also attends to the exclusions of the modern world system whose origins, as she notes, Brathwaite traced in another horrific sea voyage: the Middle Passage.69 Marked by—as well as describing—this global inequality, Drift embodies the contradictory pressures that gave rise to the iterative turn of performance writing in the first place. On the one hand, it extends Bergvall’s emphasis on the bodily exclusions of race, gender, language, and accent that put the lie to the fantasy of free exchange in the global economy. On the other hand, as a multilingual, multinational, multimedia extravaganza for print, stage, and screen, Drift seemingly exploits these exclusions to celebrate the very freedoms of the networked creative economy that it simultaneously questions. Though equally migrants, Bergvall and those who were left to die on the Mediterranean occupy polar opposite positions in a profoundly unequal global economic and geopolitical system. At least prior to Brexit, Bergvall’s translingual and transnational practice was made possible by and partly embodied her European Union identity, which allowed her to pass freely across borders that have, as Drift underscores, proved deadly to many. Bergvall addresses these global interconnections and inequalities by turning again to repetition. Drift interweaves a retelling of the migrants’

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story with a rewriting of the Old English poem The Seafarer, a sailor’s tale of exile and hardship at sea. In recounting the migrants’ voyage, Bergvall reproduces visual and textual documentary evidence, including satellite  images and cell-phone metadata. In its documentary approach to recounting maritime atrocity by neglect, Drift recalls Heimrad Bäcker’s Seascape (Seestück), a poetic text that the author presents as a “transcription” of Nuremberg trial evidence documenting how the crew of a shipwrecked Norwegian ship was left to die by the captain of a German U-boat.70 In presenting Seascape as the mere transcription of a nonliterary text—in which he, like the captain, refuses to intervene—Bäcker seems to reduce Literatur (literature) to the “reference” list that gives the Nuremberg document sources at the end of the poem.71 Drift, by contrast, reflects critically on the literary tradition not by expunging it but by rewriting it. In rewriting The Seafarer, Bergvall focuses on a text that itself comes to us inflected through many translations, most influentially that of Ezra Pound. By repeating these stories of being lost on the high seas, Bergvall links the body of work that constitutes the European literary tradition to the dead bodies that wash up on Europe’s borders today. In Drift Bergvall implicitly identifies the frequent hostility or indifference toward border-crossing migrants with an exclusive view of national and European tradition. Bergvall confounds this view by, on the one hand, conflating the migrants’ story with a foundational text of English literature, and, on the other, emphasizing the strangeness of this text, which is written in a now dead language—a language closer to her father’s Norwegian than to modern English. Bergvall further undoes the fixity of tradition by presenting many variant translations of lines from The Seafarer and by producing Drift in multiple versions across multiple media: as a print book, a film, and a live performance for voice, music, and projected images and text. Her many translations and iterations emphasize that The Seafarer itself is the product of multiple, now lost, oral versions, imperfectly copied manuscripts, and its own many subsequent translations and interpretations. These many versions and repetitions in turn underscore a fundamental tenet of performance writing: that a repeated text is never the same, that it is always inflected by the medium and body through which it is enunciated.

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Bergvall combines her partial translation of The Seafarer with extracts from Norse sagas that record the terrifying condition of hafvilla, or being lost at sea.72 The resultant text is then reiterated, each time with more letters removed, until finally only the end of the word “boat” remains (figure 4.1).73 Bergvall’s repetition of the letter t highlights—as in Norwegian poet and artist Monica Aasprong’s similarly multimedia project Soldatmarkedet (begun in 2003)—the materiality of the printed text.74 But it also stresses the text’s embodied instantiation in speech. The t’s mark the stuttering insistence of the voice in the face of the failure of speech and, in a visual mimesis, create a dark wood of text where writer and reader find themselves lost for words. The sinking word “boat” is all but drowned out, producing a page of crosses that resembles a field of graves. The eye can take in the field of letters in a moment, but in her recorded and live performances Bergvall demands that listeners attend to each individual letter, which she utters as a series of voiceless alveolar stops, or /t/ sounds. The stuttering sound of each t registers the difference between a figure for numbers killed and individual dead bodies, and the difference between England or Europe as a whole and its many contradictory parts. In Bergvall’s hands, repetition becomes a tool to unbundle monolithic

FIGURE 4.1. Bergvall, Drift, 40–41. Reproduced by permission of Caroline Bergvall and Nightboat Books.

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concepts—written language, the refugee crisis, and the European tradition— into individual letters, desperate people, dead bodies, and a cacophony of texts. Like the field of letters in Drift, Bergvall’s “Via” deploys repetition to open up a foundational text of the European tradition to multiple voices. The poem comprises retypings of the opening tercet of Dante’s Inferno in all forty-seven English translations housed in the British Library up until May  2000. Bergvall orders the texts alphabetically according to the first word of each translation. Like the repeated letter t in Drift, the multiple translations of the same three lines collectively produce a confusing “dark wood”—Dante’s “selva oscura” from the opening tercet—that highlights initial similarities followed by variations, as in Steinian iterative writing.75 By dating each translation, Bergvall also highlights the historical contingency of Dante’s place at the center of the European tradition. The first English version in “Via” dates only from the nineteenth century (Henry Francis Cary’s 1805 translation), and yet since then Dante’s text has been translated more times into English than into any other language.76 In both Drift and “Via” Bergvall underscores the continuous rewriting and reinvention of the English and European tradition and the particularly romantic, modern, and cosmopolitan origins of European medievalism. William Morris, for example, translated Icelandic sagas, and his Twenty-Four Tales is a rewriting of Chaucer. Pound, of course, translated not only The Seafarer and the Provençal troubadours but also Chinese and Japanese medieval and ancient texts. His friend Laurence Binyon was famous not only as a translator of Dante but also as keeper of the Oriental collection at the British Library, from which Bergvall sources her texts, including Binyon’s 1933 translation. Such examples serve to remind us of an obvious point, yet one worth repeating: that the origins of concepts such as the English and European tradition—like the iterative turn itself—are modern, multiple, and often non-European. But Bergvall’s iterative writing has a further, less obvious point that also bears on the policing of cultural and physical borders and that concerns the relation of texts to bodies. While in “Via” Bergvall uses a rigorous system of repetition to decompose the notion of a single English or European tradition, she also registers her own body’s role in “painstakingly” copying the dusty particularities of each book—a task not unlike the stuttering pronunciation of each t in Drift.77 Bergvall introduces the print version

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of the work with an archivist’s attention to detail, explaining how the text was created and enumerating its multiple embodiments in different platforms: performance, print, and recording.78 She writes of “ingesting” the translations in composing “Via” and of literally embodying them: “To come to an understanding of it by standing in it, by becoming it.”79 She links the work to her own biography—she was close to thirty-five (Dante’s assumed midway point in life) when she began “Via”—and to her own speech: in recording the poem, she collaborated with Ciarán Maher to enhance the barely audible fractals of her voice, so producing a forty-eighth variation on Dante’s lines.80 Like Drift, “Via” confronts the reader with systematic repetitions and embodied singularity—of tradition and of her own breath. Bergvall’s embodied position within “Via” is not so much in opposition to the poem’s conceptual system as part and parcel of the same practice: a rigorous system of copying always underscores the “instance or example” or “point of singularity” in the conceptual work, including the particularities of the process and of the copyist.81 Like Charles Olson’s appeal to Dante’s “selva oscura,” Bergvall stresses that the system “is not to be got out of.”82 But despite similarities between the two poets, Bergvall’s systematic copying refuses Olson’s commitment to the position of “your own self.” In Drift Bergvall invokes Olson’s championing of “the syllable” and “the breath” through her stuttering repetition of the letter t. But on the page her version of Olsonian “COMPOSITION BY FIELD” turns out to be a field of crosses: not simply a dark wood of language through which the individual must struggle but a memorial to the dead.83 Rather than imagining the task of poetry as being to find a new model for “the contemporary individual” or “reinventing Olson’s ‘stance toward reality’ ” in the millennial “dark wood” of lost paths and certainties, as others have claimed, Bergvall refuses to separate self and system, figure and ground, body and text.84 Instead, Bergvall makes breath the measure of the body’s and other inscriptive technology’s entanglement with the system of language. Through the stuttering repetition of the voiceless letter t in Drift, Bergvall also alludes to her exploration of the lost orthography of Old and Middle English: the replacement of þ and ð with th. Bergvall focuses on the lost thorn sign, þ, in three parts of Drift: “Block 16A6,” “Noþing,” and “Þ.”85 As Bergvall notes elsewhere, the thorn glyph disappeared “due in part to the

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absence of a corresponding letter-block in the new inscriptive techne of printing.”86 In the digital age, however, the lost letter þ returns as Unicode 16A6. Just as Bergvall ends her repetition and disintegration of her saga source texts with the repeated letter t, so “Þ” ends with the transformation of the letter and sound into t: “Famously, the sound itself is one of the tings which makes English so difficult to get right. . . . It is no small wonder that this ‘theta’ sound finds substitutes such as . . . the voiceless alveolar stop /t/ not only in its language variants but especially among late learners of the language, for whom it remains a vexing and more or less chronic obstruction.”87 Here, then, a syllable of breath, the /th/ and /t/ sounds, and the orthographic signs þ and th embody difference in speech or on the page. Bergvall’s own accent—marked by the replacement of th with t in her misspelling of the word things—is the body memory of her childhood languages, French and Norwegian. So too Bergvall’s mining of The Seafarer, Dante, the Norse sagas, and the orthographic history of English registers memories of past writing and media as they recur and are transformed across the centuries. These memories reflect discontinuities in the history of English, which again undermine the notion of a single unbroken tradition, and differences in spoken English, which reflect the diversity of the modern language. Yet differences in speech—which viscerally mark the entanglement of the body with the system of language—can equally be used to demarcate boundaries, as in shibboleth. The difficulty of pronouncing th in English makes the sound a possible shibboleth. If repetition with difference offers a way to resist the boundaries of England and Englishness, it can also serve to police them. In Drift Bergvall highlights the repetitions that produce both tradition and the inequities between the Global North and South, while also showing that these repetitions actually comprise mutable stories: the story of a text as it recurs in a new time, place, or medium; and the story of each individual person who travels to a new country. In pointing to the diversity of these stories, Drift reveals a further danger: Bergvall risks conflating her playful textual repetitions and her own relatively privileged though no less singular position—as a lesbian, French-Norwegian writer of English—with those migrants whose spatial and cultural transits imperil both their cultural identities and their lives. In other words, Bergvall’s use of repetition

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reflects a much larger contemporary problem: the attempt to recognize the singularity of each person and text while also addressing the systemic causes of the bodily and cultural peril faced by many in our increasingly interconnected but unequal world. The repetitions or movements that undo cultural fixity are risky, even deadly—for some more than others. “Some bodies like languages simply disappear,” writes Bergvall in an earlier work, the multimedia poem and autobiographical text “Cropper.”88 “Cropper” connects the entanglement of body and language to the linguistic memory of etymology and the body memory of speech in order to highlight and collapse the linguistic, geographic, and political borderlines whose crossing, as Drift shows, can be fatal. In “Cropper” Bergvall follows every line of her English text with a version in each of her two childhood languages, French and Norwegian. The resultant trilingual text undermines monolithic conceptions of the English language by drawing attention to the interplay of languages, including French and Old Norse, that gave birth to modern English. Bergvall makes the linguistic mixing that produced modern English newly relevant by linking this history to the battles for language and life in today’s linguistic and migratory upheavals, in which desperate migrants are left to drift on the borders of Europe, and those who make it to England are directed to kill their own languages by speaking only English. (Bergvall elsewhere cites a 2002 speech from the UK home secretary “in which he advocated that bicultural and bilingual families in Britain ought to ‘SPEAK ENGLISH AT HOME.’ ”)89 Bergvall’s title itself signals the life-and-death struggles of migrating languages and bodies. The English “Cropper” implies violence (as in “come a cropper”) while chiming with the Norwegian word for “bodies,” kropper, which in turn invokes its French equivalent, corps, and so the English corpse. Like the biblical shibboleth, the title’s shifting multilingual meanings suggest that the difference between the assertion and the extinguishment of the body can be as little as a subtle shift in accent and intonation or the addition or removal of a letter (in this case the substitution of k for c or the addition of an e). In the documentary video of her Middling English exhibition, Bergvall highlights this potent power of a single letter and the potentially deadly intertwinement of language and the body. The video begins by presenting six lines from “Cropper” (figure 4.2). The word “bodies” itself then disappears. Through a slow video fadeout, Bergvall removes all the o’s in the text

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FIGURES 4.2A, 4.2B, 4.2C. Sequence of three stills from Bergvall, Middling English, DVD, 0:20–0:40. Courtesy of Caroline Bergvall and John Hansard Gallery.

so that the opening words become “s me b dies.” The video fadeout remediates the two separate texts that, in the installation, were displayed on the front and back of a wall in the exhibition space: first, the text from “Cropper” without the letter o, and then the text with only the letter o remaining (figures 4.2 and 4.3). Bergvall also produced a version of this wall-piece text

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FIGURES 4.3A, 4.3B. Photographs showing two sides of a wall installation from Caroline Bergvall’s exhibition Middling English, John Hansard Gallery, University of Southampton, September 7–October 23, 2010. Courtesy of Caroline Bergvall and John Hansard Gallery. Photos by Steve Shrimpton.

for the print catalogue. In the catalogue she deploys a two-page spread in which the two texts appear opposing each other and can only be unified when the two leaves of paper are brought together (figure 4.4). The text in this case is only whole when it is rendered unreadable—when it disappears. The text is broken apart and made whole again as the book’s spine opens

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FIGURE 4.4. Bergvall, Middling English, 34–35. Reproduced by permission of Caroline Bergvall and John Hansard Gallery.

and closes—just as the word “bodies” can be voiced or silenced through the free flow or constriction of the body’s breath. Medium and message, body and text, are inseparable. Hence, Bergvall suggests, to be deprived of words, speech, language, or voice is to be deprived of personhood: to cease to be somebody and to become merely “some bodies.” Conversely, texts are always inflected by the person who writes, speaks, or reads them, so that in works like “Cropper” and Drift Bergvall confronts the problem of using her own body and position of privilege to give voice to those who cannot speak or whose voices we, as readers and listeners, do not—or choose not to—hear. Bergvall makes both the letter o and its elimination figures for absence. She equates the disappearance of the letter o with the erasure of the body’s rounded form, while also conflating the letter’s appearance with the notation for zero. By removing the letter o, Bergvall kills the bodies: “dies” emerges from “bodies” as the breath of the open vowel is squeezed out. She also deletes the crucial vowel from the word for bodies in the other two languages: “kropper” becomes “kr pper”; “corps” becomes “c rps.” By revealing death in the removal of breath from the body, Bergvall recalls

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the connection between life, breath, and spirit in Judeo-Christian theology. She also links the vivacity of the body to the mouth, which must open to enunciate the open vowel. As well as marking the body’s openings and verbal exclamations, Bergvall uses the isolated o letters on the screen and on the exhibition wall to emphasize the elimination of the body. Elsewhere in “Cropper” Bergvall invokes the o shape to stress the bodily experience of language: “Under pressure my hands sometimes balloon to the size of small waterbombs.”90 Later she returns to the image, marking the condensation of language and the elisions of her voiceprint through the elimination of certain other letters: “Force applied to language eradicates whole strands of individul n collective bodyshapes. . . . Somthing did finally burst.”91 The burst body has been inflated with language to the point of rupture, marked in the escape of gas, breath, and o’s. Deprived of its body, the o becomes nothing: literally, a zero. If for Bergvall language constitutes the body, then equally the body—breath, the mouth— constitutes language. Bergvall connects the embodiment of speech to each singular embodiment of her writing across multiple languages and media. First published in a bilingual English-Norwegian version, “Cropper” has several other manifestations. Bergvall created new versions of the text not only by adding French but also by reiterating the poem on a wall in the Middling English exhibition, in the catalogue and the video of the show, in multiple recordings of the poem read by herself and others, and in her book Meddle English. In each version, Bergvall emphasizes medium-specific qualities (video fade-out, the two sides of a wall in a gallery space, the recto and verso structure of the print book), underscoring that each medium is as singular as each body. She also varies the text. In Meddle English the lines quoted in the exhibition and video read: Some bodies like languages simply disappear noen kropper liksom språk blir simpelthen borte disparaissent comme les langues Some or many are being disappeared noen eller mange et blitt borte ont été disparus92

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This iteration is itself a part of a longer text comprising mainly three-line stanzas in the three languages, each of which begins with the word “some,” and most of which describe the lack or loss of a body or bodies. The three lines here closely resemble those on the video and the exhibition wall but with some variations. First, “some” is capitalized at the start of each stanza in the Meddle English version. Second, the first “noen” (“some” in Norwegian) disappears in the Middling English video version, leaving just “kropper” (bodies), though it remains on the wall installation. Third, the “certains corps” (some bodies) are completely absent from the French in the Meddle English version: they have been “disappeared,” as the poem ominously puts it. In no version does the French contain an equivalent of “simply” or “simpelthen.” These missing elements, between languages and versions, underscore the slippages and variations that occur in translation and across media even as they highlight the many points of intersection between the three related languages and versions. Bergvall deploys repetition with difference to highlight the problem of singularity and generalization that the word “some” and its French and Norwegian cognates connote. On the one hand, Bergvall uses the accumulated repetitions of “some” to stress each instance’s singularity. In this respect, “Cropper” recalls the work of Stein, who in her portrait piece “Picasso” repeats the words “some” and “something” to produce a cumulative sense of construction and work, of what Stein termed “entity” rather than identity.93 On the other hand, in repeating “some,” Bergvall also emphasizes the word’s function as a hinge between the general and particular. In “To Elsie” William Carlos Williams uses the phrase “some Elsie” to move from his generalized description of poverty, cultural mixing, and internal migration in the United States to the specific case of his housekeeper, Elsie.94 In a similar way to Williams, Bergvall uses “some” both to insist on the specificity of each body and language (“some” is not the same as “noen” or “certains”) and to reveal how the word dehumanizes and distances, allowing “some bodies” to be “beaten violated taken away.”95 Emphasizing the relationship between disappearing words (a linguistic corpus) and disappearing bodies (corpses), Bergvall explores the intertwinement of body and language through the bodily experience of speech, the body memory of accent, and the body of texts (or corpus) that gives us  etymology. Through her repetitions and variations across French,

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Norwegian, and English, Bergvall highlights the etymological trail that links the French “croupe” to the English “cropper” to the Norwegian “kropp,” all of which derive from an old Germanic word with the sense of a “swollen protuberance or excrescence.”96 (In fact, “cropper” can refer to a pigeon capable of greatly puffing up its crop, a pouch-like protuberance at the bird’s neck.)97 “Cropper” thereby links the linguistic iterations of etymology to the iterations of sound produced in the body—be it a pigeon’s coo or a person’s voice. Bergvall traces etymological repetitions with variation through the body: through the words for body (“kropp,” “corps”) and through her particular body and pronunciation of each language. To follow only one path, “Croup,” the title of one of the subsections of “Cropper,” not only stresses sound “in the mouth” but recalls croupe from the French and originally from Germanic forms, such as Low German and Dutch krop and Old Norse kroppr. This etymological path leads to the English “Crop,” the title of the third section of “Cropper.” The French “corps” links to the English “corpse,” whose p was introduced in both cases (though this influenced the pronunciation only in English) through interference with the Latin word “Corpus,” the title of the opening section of “Cropper.”98 In “Cropper” Bergvall conjoins linguistic history and body memory through repetition. She makes her personal linguistic history audible in the repetitions and variations of her trilingual speech and in her English accent’s trace of her childhood languages. She links her body memory to the historical memory of etymology, which like her linguistic history only becomes fully perceptible when we trace the repetitions and variations of words across languages. For Viktor Shklovsky the stone becomes stony again when language is made strange, when it becomes foreign.99 For Bergvall history, body, and words become tangible not just through the strangeness of the new but also through the sameness of repetition. Bergvall draws on the estranging displacements of modernism but also highlights the violence and loss that attend these displacements. If “Bergvall’s language resists a home,” then this resistance is highly ambivalent and differs from modernist celebrations of strangeness and homelessness.100 In Drift Bergvall recounts a love affair that came out of her collaboration on a live version of the poem at the Théâtre du Grütli, Geneva, in  2012: “The success of the first performance . . . the disturbance that is

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pushing a way into my life, all this leaves me in a total state of shock and openness.” Bergvall thereby registers the potential liberation of leaving home and getting lost: “I come home and find that I have lost my sense of home.”101 Yet she also recounts an escape from home that ends in death. Bergvall asks what is lost as well as what is gained when a body, or a body of work (a “corpus”), moves across history, media, languages, cultures, and geographic space. Such journeys may reveal the porousness of linguistic and cultural borders and the illusion of monolithic traditions, but especially for the most vulnerable, they are risky and sometimes lethal. On the one hand, Drift might seem to highlight these silences and exclusions. But on the other hand, it might be seen as extending that history of silence, exclusion, and exploitation by turning the deaths of vulnerable migrants to Bergvall’s own creative ends and by filtering their stories through her own account of a love affair. Bergvall aestheticizes and literally romanticizes these deaths by conflating her own love affair with the migrants’ fatal sea voyage: “The storms walked me down to her shore. The storms took me to her sea.”102 However we read it, Drift underscores the difference between those who can pass freely between countries to make their art and engage in transnational love affairs and those who must stay at home on pain of death. Bergvall’s work and performance writing emerge not just from the tension between individual creativity and the network economy, nor solely from the attempt to negotiate between the bodily and discursive essentialisms of feminist and avant-garde poetics. Iterative form might enable, in one possible reading of cheek’s Coleridge, the seamless integration of the individual into the postindustrial, network economy—as an active cultural consumer or a member of a body corporate. But as Bergvall’s deployment of performance writing reveals, iteration can also highlight a more troubling confrontation between instantiation and repetition, singular embodiment and system: the sea of inequality that surrounds the single drifting body. Bergvall in fact doubly inscribes these problems in Drift through the multiple echoes of another poetic work published six years earlier: Zong! (2008), by Tobago-born, Canada-based M. NourbeSe Philip.103 Like Drift, Zong! describes an act of maritime atrocity: the murder by drowning of around 150 African slaves by the captain of the ship Zong so that he could

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claim insurance for the loss. And both works are partly forensic examinations of legal texts: Zong! reproduces the ruling from the insurance trial that followed the deliberate drowning, Gregson v. Gilbert, just as Drift reproduces material from Charles Heller, Lorenzo Pezzani, and Situ Studio’s Report on the “Left-To-Die Boat,” a document intended to support a prosecution of those who failed to help the drifting boat. Like Drift, Zong! also includes an account of its own making and of the author’s transnational travels. In these texts, respectively entitled “Log” and “Notanda,” Bergvall and Philip use watery metaphors to describe the difficulty of creating poems out of these legal texts and atrocities. Recounting her process of making poems by cutting up and rearranging the existing legal text, for example, Philip writes: “I am hunting for something—anything—to give me some bearing, since I am, metaphorically speaking, at sea, having cut myself off from the comfort and predictability of my own language—my own meaning.”104 Similarly, Bergvall compares her compositional process to being cut adrift: “No longer expecting to make it to the other side, or any other side, I open up the process to the accidents of gravitational pull.”105 Both poets also seek to interrogate systems that murderously denied or ignored the humanity of Africans. They therefore necessarily highlight the role of language in recognizing or denying the bodies and humanity of others, and they use repetition to explore this problem of recognition as it is embodied in speech. Just as Philip’s poetic method involves the cutting up and disjunctive reiteration of a legal text, so her essayistic method reiterates the refrain “It is a story that cannot be told; a story that in not telling must tell itself.”106 Or as she asks in the opening of “Ferrum,” another part of Zong!, how can the “me i” come to “sing song” and so “say what cannot be give voice to”: how can the poem tell a “tale” that “can not be / told”?107 A similar problem of speech recurs in Drift, particularly in Bergvall’s various versions of the opening lines of the The Seafarer, in which, in Bergvall’s words, the singer of the poem calls for the power to tell a “true real righteous . . . tale.”108 Both poets also turn to stuttering repetition to articulate and embody this difficulty of speech. Bergvall’s repetition of the letter t and its sound in Drift echoes the repeated letters that recur in Zong!, beginning with the opening lines “w w w w a wa / w a w a t / er.”109 These repeated sounds affirm that “with the addition of an exclamation point, Philip transforms and breaks Zong from a proper name . . . into song/moan/chant/shout/breath.”110 In both cases, repetition marks not

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just the difficulty of speech but also the effort to give voice to those whose deaths have not been recognized. Bergvall uses the breathy articulation of the /t/ sound in Drift to pause over and give voice to every death. In response to “the kind of broad-brush brutalizing where people just get reduced to Negro man, Negro woman, and ditto, ditto, ditto,” Philip also emphasizes each letter and word. She writes of “paying attention” to and “taking care with” each ditto so as to recognize each person.111 Both poems are in this sense about systems of shibboleth: acts of repetition that produce or deny recognition—in this case recognition of recent or historical atrocity. Drift itself repeats so many aspects of Zong! that it in turn seems an act of shibboleth: a test of what difference the body of the speaker or author makes to whether such histories are recognized—are heard at all. Drift thereby also reminds us that racial, economic, and other pernicious forms of exclusion are also part of the poetry world. In some ways, for instance, performance writing reinvented forms of iterative poetry that, as we have seen, originated elsewhere, but whose previous iterations could not pass the shibboleth of the Anglo-American avant-garde. Arguably, performance writing made the iterative turn legible by presenting it through white avantgarde authors working at the cultural centers of the English-speaking world. Bergvall’s version of Simon Says repetition could pass within the largely “white room” of the Anglo-American avant-garde in a way that Brathwaite’s “Nametracks” could not.112 Yet at the same time, Bergvall’s use of performance writing to address migration, multilingualism, and shibboleth would provide a capacious framework and impetus for further uses of repetition to challenge cultural, linguistic, and geographic exclusions. If performance writing offered an influential framework for the iterative turn in 1990s UK and US Anglophone poetry, it was closely followed by another term that encompassed some of the same modes of poetic practice and that would further highlight questions of prejudice and inequality: conceptual writing. By the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, conceptual writing would supplant performance writing as the most widely recognized term for the iterative turn in Anglophone avant-garde poetry. Bergvall herself would come to be associated and to associate herself with the new term.113 Emerging partly out of a similar application of art practices to poetry in the 1990s, conceptual writing nevertheless differed from performance writing, offering a distinctive account of the poetics of

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repetition and a different approach to the tension between singularity and system. Writers such as Kenneth Goldsmith and Vanessa Place developed a less anxious, more overt, and more cynical adaptation of poetry to the neoliberal economy and network technology. Even more than performance writing, conceptual writing seemed for some to dominate the conversation about contemporary avant-garde poetry in ways that obscured antecedents and alternative genealogies. It would also more overtly invite charges of exclusion and exploitation.

Chapter Five

COPY RIGHTS Conceptual Writing, the Mongrel Coalition, and the Racial Politics of Digital Media

On Friday, March 13, 2015, Kenneth Goldsmith read a new work at Interrupt 3, a four-day series of presentations and discussions of text-based art coorganized by Francesca Capone and John Cayley of the Digital Arts program at Brown University.1 The new work was an edited version of one of the three autopsies of Michael Brown, the unarmed black teenager who was shot dead by police on August 9, 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri. Goldsmith removed or simplified the medical language and chose to end the reading with the statement: “The remaining male genitalia system is unremarkable.”2 The event ignited immediate outrage on social media. A newly formed anonymous online political art group, the Mongrel Coalition Against Gringpo, found its accusations of racism against “KENNIE G AND HIS CREW” confirmed.3 With this punning comparison of Goldsmith’s poetry to saxophonist Kenny G’s pale imitation of black music, the Mongrel Coalition had just a few months earlier announced a campaign against “WHITE CONCEPTUALISM.” The coalition used the block capital letters of the modernist manifesto to link the atrocity of slavery and black exploitation to the avant-garde, singling out as “TARGETS . . . MARJORIE PERLOFF & KENNETH GOLDSMITH THE OVERSEERS OF POETRY AND THEIR OVERSEERS TRAINING PROGRAM IN PLANTATION MARKET POETICS.” 4

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Two months later further controversy erupted in response to another white US conceptual writer, Vanessa Place, and her retweeting of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind. Place had begun retweeting the novel in 2009. Sometime no later than 2012 she had set her Twitter avatar to an image of Hattie McDaniel in the role of Mammy in the 1939 film adaptation of Gone with the Wind, and her Twitter feed banner to a caricature of an African American woman reproduced from a blackface minstrelsy sheetmusic illustration dating from the end of the nineteenth century.5 In midMay 2015 the Mongrel Coalition sparked a social media campaign against Place’s work that led to a successful online petition for her removal from the organizing committee of the American Writing Programs (AWP) conference in Los Angeles and to the cancellation of the Berkeley Poetry Conference at which she was due to read the following month.6 The Mongrel Coalition was only one of a number of groups and individuals to respond to Place and Goldsmith, and these responses in turn constitute only a very small part of the wider story of US racial politics in 2015, a year that saw the further rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, growing public outrage at a seemingly endless series of police shootings of unarmed black people, and increasingly active street and social media campaigns against racism in US society. But within the poetry world, the calling out of Goldsmith and Place was a significant moment that not only generated a vast number of social media posts and online commentaries but also drew the attention of larger media outlets, including the Los Angeles Times, the Guardian, the New Republic, the Huffington Post, and the New Yorker.7 Anglophone conceptual writing had made copying its signature gesture. Now for some of its critics that gesture became synonymous with racism. The same poetics of repetition used by Kamau Brathwaite to combat racial stereotyping and the degradation of black experience now came to be publicly associated with the exploitation of black lives. Goldsmith and Place, their critics alleged, reiterated just the kind of possession and mimicry of black bodies that Brathwaite had sought to oppose. Brathwaite had turned to the rhythm of repetition to overcome the pernicious racial mimicry that was one legacy of the “tragedies of slavery” in the Americas.8 Conversely, Goldsmith and Place were accused of using repetition to affirm the ongoing currency of racial mimicry and the inescapable legacy of slavery and segregation in the United States. What happened to iterative poetics

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in the early twenty-first century that transformed it from a counterdiscourse into a speech act seemingly so closely aligned with exploitation, racism, and white authority? The seeming about-face in the fate of the copy derives from what I have been arguing is its double valence: the copy can equally function as a figure for liberation and for the inescapable repetition of existing power relations. This duality is evident in the “hint of the dreaded pentameter” that resounded in the reiteration of Brathwaite’s work from tape and stage to page,9 in Dmitri Prigov’s repetitions of Soviet discourse and officially sanctioned literature, and in Bergvall’s alignment of the iterative poetics of anagrams with the objectification and bondage of women’s bodies. Iteration signifies through its simultaneous emphasis on difference and sameness; it is a device of both subversion and mastery. Yet the polemics of the 2015 controversy obscured this duality and the key protagonists’ shared commitment to the copy. Unlike the debate and criticism that the controversy produced, this chapter focuses not on condemning or condoning the protagonists but on the role of the copy. It is not a prosecution or defense of the positions taken by Goldsmith, Place, and the Mongrel Coalition, or by their advocates and critics, but an analysis of the copy logic underlying not only the debate but also the works that all three produced. It shows how Goldsmith, Place, and their most outspoken critics, the Mongrel Coalition, share a commitment to the poetry of repetition and to the copy logic of digital media. It examines what the controversy can teach us about the role of the copy in twentyfirst-century culture and the different possible ethical, political, and poetic trajectories of the device of repetition. Though often lumped together in the controversy, Goldsmith and Place presented their uses of the copy very differently. Whereas Goldsmith aligned copy strategies with the utopian idea of complete freedom to collect texts and to remake oneself in the Internet age, Place presented her copy poetry as a dystopian analysis of how individuals are utterly powerless, defined by their identity position (racial, gendered, or class), and doomed to repeat and so perpetuate an unjust artistic, social, economic, and technological system. Embedded in the same copy culture, the Mongrel Coalition’s poetic response to Goldsmith and Place engaged, contended, and to some extent fused these competing accounts of the fate of copying and repetition in

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twenty-first-century poetry. On the one hand, the coalition extended Place’s presentation of conceptual writing as indelibly connected to the history of the violent possession of black bodies in the United States and to the present-day racism and white privilege of both avant-garde poetry and society at large. On the other hand, like Goldsmith, the coalition deployed copy strategies to explicitly utopian ends. It claimed—in a phrase that was itself, appropriately enough, adopted and adapted—to be “USING THE OPPRESSOR’S TOOLS TO BURN DOWN THE HOUSE.” The controversy and the works themselves thus reveal competing visions of the role of copy practice as, in the words of Goldsmith’s and Place’s critics, “a repetition without a difference” or as a device of revolutionary change.10 To recognize the shared commitment to the copy among these seemingly opposed protagonists is to move beyond the familiar dichotomies through which the controversy was filtered: aesthetics versus politics, form versus content, avant-garde versus authenticity, autonomous copied language versus identity politics, and the rights of artists to copy what they please versus the right of individuals or groups to control their own identities.11 These dichotomies obscure the role of the copy in the work of not just Place and Goldsmith but also the Mongrel Coalition. What their poetic engagements with the politics of race reveal are the inadequacies of these oppositions and the entanglement of these seemingly opposed positions. In all their work, the copy serves as a bridge between form and content and between avantgarde poetics and identity politics; it connects poetry and aesthetics to the wider social, political, and economic conditions of our networked world. Far from pitting impersonal cut and paste against identity politics, the controversy reveals the intermingling of copying and identity in network capitalism, in which production and consumption increasingly blur in what has been termed the “prosumption” economy.12 For example, on a social media platform such as Facebook, consumers simultaneously produce the content, frequently through acts of public consumption, such as liking and sharing. They also produce their own identities by consuming—sharing and liking—other content. And these identities in turn become products to be consumed by other social media users, who in so doing augment their own online identities. In this way, the copy serves as the key device of both prosumer culture and identity construction. This wider cultural logic of the copy in the network economy is evinced by the common commitment of

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Goldsmith, Place, and the Mongrel Coalition to both the copy and the politics of identity. Goldsmith, Place, and the Mongrel Coalition all mix copy and identity, consumption and production, repeating and writing, thereby blurring the distinction between the work itself and the responses to that work. Hence, their copy works must be analyzed alongside the responses that they have generated, since those responses—including the Mongrel Coalition’s response to Goldsmith and Place—are an anticipated and essential part of their practice. Yet what was remarkable on all sides of the 2015 controversy was that the focus remained exclusively on the poetry of Goldsmith and Place: the poetics of the Mongrel Coalition’s intervention was largely ignored. Even though both Goldsmith and Place had made the aesthetics of the Internet and social media central to their practice, little attention was paid to the artistic practice of the Mongrel Coalition, which also deployed Twitter feeds and other social media, and which published poetic work comprising copied words and images. This dichotomy between the analysis of Place’s and Goldsmith’s poetic works and the discussion of the Mongrel Coalition’s political statements reflects and reinforces the dichotomies between aesthetics and politics, autonomous copy poetry and the politics of identity, and rhetoric and authenticity through which the debate was framed and through which discussions of contemporary avant-garde poetry are often filtered.13 In this chapter I will therefore consider the poetic and rhetorical strategies of both the Mongrel Coalition and its two most prominent “TARGETS,” seeking here, as elsewhere in Make It the Same, to unravel the false opposition between identity and copy. As Make It the Same as a whole argues, to trace the rise of copy poetry is to connect a range of aesthetics, languages, and cultural contexts that are not usually linked and that are sometimes, as the polemicized debate over conceptual writing illustrates, assumed to be diametrically opposed. For while the controversy, as many commentators noted, repeats and highlights familiar oppositions and exclusions within US poetry and society, analyzing the copy poetics of the protagonists helps reveal the present-day social, political, and technological conditions of these repetitions and the possible directions of the copy in the twenty-first century.14 These works and the controversy surrounding them do not reveal anything inherently racist or progressive about the

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device of copying, but they do illustrate its increasing ubiquity and, with it, the contested politics, poetics, and economics of the right to copy.15 COLLECTOR AND ALLEGORIST

In the 1990s Goldsmith worked in New York’s rapidly expanding IT industry. During this time he also transformed himself from a visual artist into a conceptual writer.16 His practice emerged alongside the rhetoric of free exchange associated with the early days of the World Wide Web and the apparently decentralizing possibilities of the emergent network economy. In developing his brand of conceptual copy works, Goldsmith drew on and contributed to an understanding of personal and collective identity and freedom that emphasized the right to copy: the right to consume—and reproduce for further consumption—the various products of the cultural economy. As Goldsmith’s example reveals, copying goes hand in hand with identity construction in conceptual writing and in our networked world at large. Just as copying and repetition play a central role in social media identity construction, Goldsmith’s practice of disavowing the expressive subject and identity in favor of autonomous copied language in fact leads to a renewed emphasis on expression and identity through his allegorical celebration of the copyist as the hero of modern life. Goldsmith’s early text works connect the iterative poetics of collection to the possibilities of web cut and paste. His No. 111 2.7.93–10.20.96 comprises selected and ordered texts encountered by the poet over the three-and-ahalf years noted in the work’s title. Tracking the exponential rise of the World Wide Web over this period, the work, as it progresses, is increasingly composed of material copied and pasted from the Internet.17 It ends with a cut and paste of the entire text of D. H. Lawrence’s story “The RockingHorse Winner.”18 In No. 111 Goldsmith remodels the author as a web surfer. This author’s identity is revealed in his selection of other people’s words, which he arranges, like the Internet itself, as a weblike series of discrete but interlinked texts. In an extension of his web-based collection practice and his disregard for copyright laws, in 1996 Goldsmith initiated another collection project— the website for avant-garde sound and concrete poetry and film that would become his best-known work: UbuWeb.19 UbuWeb took as its starting point a form of “cyberlibertarianism.” For the cyberlibertarian, postindustrialism

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is “an environment through which to move and grow” as a “digitally enfranchised individual consumer and entrepreneur.”20 The cyberlibertarian views the Internet as enabling the free exchange, production, and consumption of information. Examples of cyberlibertarianism include the copyleft copyright licenses and rhetoric of programmers who have sought to ensure the ongoing free exchange of their software. Goldsmith presented UbuWeb by adapting the cyberlibertarian’s adopted slogan “information wants to be free.”21 In Goldsmith’s version, the tagline became “UbuWeb wants to be free.”22 Reflecting this ethos of free exchange, Goldsmith decided to present avant-garde materials on UbuWeb without seeking permission from copyright holders. As a result, Goldsmith has received many cease-anddesist notices over the years, to which he responds with the same rhetoric of free exchange. His pleas for permission to keep works online typically make assertions like “We don’t touch money” and UbuWeb is simply “an overgrown fansite.”23 In another interview, he claims that “Ubu ignores capital—we’re neutral about it to the point where, like copyright, we just pretend it doesn’t exist. We propose a utopia where culture is free and open to anyone.”24 Goldsmith seems here to echo Marcus Boon’s belief that “below the surface of contemporary consumer culture, there is a collective dream of free access to an infinity of things.”25 Yet this very rhetoric of free exchange can also be read as embodying the cultural logic of postindustrial network capitalism. By emphasizing the value of consumer desire—of the “fans”—over the copyright holders, Goldsmith echoes a much larger shift in accounts of artistic value from production to use and exchange value and the intensification of that shift with the rise of file sharing and social media. This shift is evident not just in Goldsmith’s work but also, as we shall see, in the work of Place and the Mongrel Coalition. The shift relates to the ongoing debate “between productivist and consumerist theories of literary value.”26 On the one hand, Goldsmith’s stress on the fans reflects the emphasis on the consumption value of consumer pleasure and exchange that first challenged accounts of artistic value based on labor in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the Internet age Goldsmith echoes the “demand-side critiques of private intellectual property” that in the nineteenth century “unwittingly helped pave the way for the consumer hedonics of neoclassical economics.”27 Here freedom as a value becomes not a political right but an economic one: the right to consume, share, and exchange. On the other

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hand, Goldsmith’s emphasis on his curatorship of the site reflects the other account of artistic value that challenged labor value in the nineteenth century and that continues to exert an influence on conceptions of copyright today: the value of innovation and genius. By combining these values, Goldsmith’s UbuWeb reflected the fusion of production and consumption accounts of value in the prosumption economy. While UbuWeb and Goldsmith’s copy practice predated Web 2.0 social media, they reflected the same emergent cultural logic and prosumerist economics of copying. Goldsmith’s cyberlibertarian rhetoric of free exchange and his copy poetics embody the cultural logic of the prosumer economy that increasingly governs our lives. The link between Goldsmith’s appropriation practice and the network economy is clearly on display in UbuWeb. Goldsmith has repeatedly presented UbuWeb as a bastion of free exchange under pressure from increasingly draconian copyright regimes. For example, in January 2012 Goldsmith issued the following statement of protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act (PIPA): “UbuWeb will blackout on Weds, January 18th for 24 hours to Protest SOPA & PIPA. If SOPA passes, you can kiss UbuWeb goodbye. Remember, the web won’t be this way forever. Don’t bookmark. Download. Download. Download. Everything on Ubu is downloadable. Hard drives are cheap. Grab what you need. Don’t trust the cloud. Stop SOPA.”28 Goldsmith was not alone in opposing SOPA and PIPA. Some of the world’s largest corporations, including Google and Facebook, also protested against the proposed new laws.29 The recent history of copyright law is often seen as a battle between large corporations and the interests of consumers. In fact, in network capitalism both positions are occupied by large corporations: on the one hand, Hollywood studios, multinational music companies, and publishing conglomerates seek to extend copyright and criminalize infringers; on the other hand, companies of the network economy, such as Google and Facebook, oppose the extension of copyright since they profit not from production but from consumption and exchange.30 Like Google and Facebook, Goldsmith emphasizes the values of unfettered consumer desire. In the place of corporate authorship, Google and Facebook give us platform ownership, just as in the place of the maker, Goldsmith gives us the writer as genius prosumer. Goldsmith’s aggressively anticopyright, free exchange rhetoric proposes a poetics of consumer exchange: the shift, in

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Jacques Attali’s terms, from the culture and economics of “repeating”—of consumption via the stockpiling of reproductions—to the culture and economics of “composing,” where reproductions are not just consumed but remixed and the consumer becomes a prosumer.31 Yet whereas Brathwaite in the 1960s and Attali in the 1970s saw in remixing the potential for liberation, in the 2000s the remixing prosumer becomes not an alternative to mass media commodity culture, but business as usual for the Internet media giants like Google and Facebook. To note this shift is not to criticize Goldsmith, who himself acknowledges his relationship to structures of power, describing in one essay how he “learned to stop worrying and love the institution.”32 Instead, it is to understand the link between his work and a network economy in which the consumers are increasingly producers, who produce their own identity or image via acts of consumption, such as liking, sharing, and commenting. Seen in this context, Goldsmith’s use of other people’s words does not involve the elimination of subjectivity, identity, expression, or authorship, but marks the wider shift in the prosumer economy from a subject or author defined by production to one defined by consumption. Hence Goldsmith’s use of seemingly autonomous copied language interfaces with a renewed emphasis on the subject and identity of the author. Therefore, while some critics have emphasized the formal structuring devices and materiality of his copied language, others have insisted on the symbolic, metaphoric, or allegorical meaning of the authorial figure implied by his work. Marjorie Perloff, for example, focuses on how his arrangement and cataloguing of preexisting pieces of language produce a “sociopoetic document.”33 By contrast, Michael Golston and others argue that the actual text produced in such works is irrelevant, that Goldsmith’s conceptual writing is largely allegorical.34 For instance, Sianne Ngai reads Goldsmith’s Fidget, a description of every movement his body made on a single day, as performing an absurdly strict form of rule following and so, implicitly, as a kind of allegory for the subservient relationship of the individual to a totalizing system.35 The opposing readings of Goldsmith might be reconciled by recognizing him as both a collector and an allegorist: he both celebrates the right to copy in the prosumer economy and transcends this system by offering his writing as an allegory for the absurd position of the individual caught in a web of inescapable repetitions. In UbuWeb and elsewhere, Goldsmith stages

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the prosumer-collector’s desire to accumulate and order a potentially endless range of texts and things. This absurdist desire for totality is marked by works such as Day, which presents all the words in the New York Times for one day; or Soliloquy, which contains all the words spoken by Goldsmith for one week; or No. 111, which purportedly contains all the words collected of a particular type over the period; or Goldsmith’s crowd-sourced attempt to print the entire Internet.36 Goldsmith’s ordering principles mark him out as a collector in Walter Benjamin’s sense. As Benjamin writes, “For the collector, the world is present, and indeed ordered, in each of his objects. Ordered, however, according to a surprising and, for the profane understanding, incomprehensible connection. This connection stands to the customary ordering and schematization of things something as their arrangement in the dictionary stands to a natural arrangement.”37 In Day Goldsmith reorders the newspaper into the regular intervals of a single typeface, ignoring distinctions between section names, advertising, the text of articles, images, the range of fonts and font sizes, and other elements of layout.38 No. 111 is divided into sections based on the number of syllables per unit, and within each section the units are arranged alphabetically. Soliloquy is divided into seven “Acts” that mark the seven days recorded and extend the notion of the work as a piece of theater. Goldsmith also evinces the collector’s or archivist’s principles of selection, combination, and order in his serial audio work “Kenneth Goldsmith Sings Theory.” This work comprises interpretations for music and voice of texts from writers such as Theodore Adorno, Roland Barthes, and J. K. Rowling, whose inclusion alongside these literary and cultural theorists absurdly privileges exchange and attention over copyright and meaning. Here the division of each text into movements, the shifting musical accompaniment, and the literal pitch intervals through which Goldsmith’s voice ranges function to order the found texts.39 The opening number in this series, “Kenneth Goldsmith Sings Walter Benjamin,” explicitly connects his work to Benjamin’s writing on the collector. Goldsmith chooses to sing—in an idiosyncratic and unmelodious style—almost the entirety of a copyrighted English translation of “Unpacking My Library.” Goldsmith’s act of copying and remediation parallels the way Benjamin constructs his essay out of the books he owns.40 Goldsmith also stresses his debt to Benjamin as a collector-author in Capital, a rewriting of The Arcades Project that replaces Benjamin’s quotations and

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comments about Paris as “the capital of the nineteenth century” with quotations and comments about twentieth-century New York City.41 Through Benjamin, Goldsmith highlights not only the collection of particulars and their idiosyncratic ordering but also how the collector as protagonist or hero comes to function as an allegorical figure for the individual in the prosumer economy. Although Benjamin writes that “the allegorist is, as it were, the polar opposite of the collector,” he also suggests that “in every collector hides an allegorist, and in every allegorist a collector.” The collector and allegorist represent two contrasting responses to the information overload of modernity. While the allegorist “dislodges things from their context and, from the outset, relies on his profundity to illuminate their meaning,” the “collector . . . brings together what belongs together; by keeping in mind their affinities and their succession in time, he can eventually furnish information about his objects.” 42 In “Unpacking My Library” Benjamin the collector is the hero of his own discussion of collecting. And in The Arcades Project he is the collector of the texts through which he assembles his commentary, including on the figure of the collector, who is the subject of one of the Konvoluts, or files, that make up the text. Benjamin makes the collector into an allegorical figure for the experience of modernity, in which the subject is overwhelmed by the proliferation of things and texts and responds through both careful accumulations of texts and objects and a radical dislodging of “things from their context” in order to illuminate the similar dislodgment that is the condition of modernity. The allegorical collector responds, in Benjamin’s words, to “the confusion . . . in which the things of the world are found.” 43 As Goldsmith emphasizes, this confusion is only exacerbated by the proliferating copies that mark the digital age. Goldsmith’s writing blends the collection and copying of texts with an allegory about the individual negotiating these proliferating copies, extending a tradition of art and poetry “informed by data excess” that “has been with us at least since the emergence of modernism.” 44 He does not oppose copied language to identity and subjectivity but rather, following prosumerist logic, defines identity, subjectivity, and authorship as acts of copying through the allegorical figure of the author-collector. In collecting and vocally reinterpreting Benjamin’s text, Goldsmith also performs an allegory. He presents the performer-collector as the true subject of the drama and as an allegorical figure for the individual in our networked world.

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In Goldsmith’s work the acts of collecting, archiving, and ordering texts easily spill over into the allegorical. For example, Goldsmith’s Soliloquy highlights the role of the collector as actor in his own drama through its title and division into acts. Soliloquy might seem to present an exemplary text of anthropological collection, archiving one week of speech by a person in the late 1990s New York art scene. But it is also highly theatrical and allegorical. The person recorded is the author, who frequently comments on the tapes he is using to record his speech: “Can I put my finger in your ass? All the way up? Why? That’s on tape. Just to spice the tape a little bit, right?” Unsurprisingly, this comment provokes an argument with his partner, artist Cheryl Donegan, again allowing Goldsmith “just to spice the tape a little bit.” 45 Goldsmith here seems to allude to the allegorical modernist novel Ulysses, in which Molly’s final monologue returns repeatedly to Bloom’s obsession with her bottom: “If he wants to kiss my bottom Ill drag open my drawers and bulge it right out in his face as large as life he can stick his tongue 7 miles up my hole”; “I know every turn in him Ill tighten my bottom well and let out a few smutty words smellrump or lick my shit or the first mad thing comes into my head.” 46 Like Molly’s monologue, Soliloquy presents a whole world solely through a single continuous speech act. Goldsmith further emphasizes the connection to Ulysses by structuring Soliloquy according to a similar conceit: the massive number of words produced out of the daily life of a Jewish protagonist in a big city. Goldsmith draws on Ulysses in several other works of collection and copying and in the transformation of these copy works into allegory. Although Soliloquy lasts a week rather than a day, Goldsmith emphasizes Joyce’s diegetic constraint of a single day in other related works, such as Day (all the words from one day of the New York Times) and, most explicitly Joycean of all, Fidget, in which Goldsmith recounts every move that his body made on June 16, 1997: Bloomsday.47 In these works Goldsmith echoes how Joyce’s Ulysses functions as a modernist epic through a collection of juxtaposed particulars that point to the totality of the modern world. In his attempt “to spice the tape a little bit” in Soliloquy, he alludes in particular to how Joyce deploys a “woman’s sexual parts, . . . base sensations, and her coarsest terms for them to ground” an “epic statement for his age and culture.” 48 In transmuting this collection of particulars into a larger statement about the world, Joyce “self-consciously uses pornographic subject matter to dramatize the limitations of the visible

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world and lay claim to a truth beyond it.” 49 This transcendent movement— routed through the female body but conventionally patriarchal in asserting a truth beyond it—is precisely a dramatization of the shift from mere collection to allegory. Similarly, although “the anus, as outlet of bodily waste, metaphorizes” Goldsmith’s “poetics of waste recovery” (his transformation of the detritus of the Internet and his daily speech into a new literary product),50 it is Goldsmith’s finger—along with his echo of Bloom’s bottom fetish—that figures his phallic power to transcend his subject matter: to make the demented particulars of Soliloquy into an allegory for New York as the capital of the twentieth century and of modernity at large. Adapting Joyce, Goldsmith performs a kind of alchemy that transforms a collection into an allegory of the world system through the allegorical finger and figure of the collector himself: hence one critic’s allegorical description of Goldsmith as “the wizard Kenneth, goldsmith alchemist” of conceptualism.51 The allegorical figure of the collector allows Soliloquy and other works by Goldsmith “to insist not on the primacy of the data, or even of the structures, but the subjects who are their causal source.”52 In other words, the real subject of Goldsmith’s work is the conceptualist collector, who derives his allegorical power from his ability to appropriate and transcode other texts and, as in Joyce, the female body. Goldsmith’s protagonist as collector alludes to but does not quite resemble Benjamin’s heroic allegorical collector, who attempts to archive and order the unorderable totality of the world. Rather, Soliloquy allegorizes a contemporary condition now all too familiar to us from social media. The collector is a self-conscious self-archivist and prosumer, performing, in Soliloquy’s words, in “a hall of mirrors.”53 A free-floating cyberlibertarian subject, Goldsmith’s collector defines himself only by taking the texts and bodies of others and making something greater—less literal, more allegorical—from them: the allegorical collector himself. As Goldsmith writes, “If my identity is really up for grabs and changeable by the minute—as I believe it is—it’s important that my writing reflect this state of ever-shifting identity and subjectivity.” Hence conceptual writing, or “uncreative writing,” as Goldsmith terms it, is “a postidentity literature.”54 Fusing 1990s cyberlibertarian rhetoric with avant-garde poetry’s skepticism of fixed identity, Goldsmith construes conceptual writing as a mechanism for transforming other texts and bodies into the allegorist-collector’s gold— the color of the cover of his monumental rewriting of the Arcades Project,

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Capital. Ironically, however, Goldsmith’s claimed “postidentity literature” turns out in fact to be precisely a literature of identity formation, an identity defined by what it repeats. In constructing his identity through acts of copying, Goldsmith emphasizes a by now commonplace notion of the decentered subject, whose identity comes via a “tissue of quotations” drawn from “the infinity of language.”55 Goldsmith makes Barthes’s once revolutionary account of the text fit easily into the prosumerist logic of identity construction on the web: we produce our identity out of what we consume so that our identity can in turn be consumed by others. In the prosumer economy, power shifts from the cultural producer and from mass-media giants like the Hollywood studios and music industry to the selectors, arrangers, and sharers of content, like Google, Facebook, and Goldsmith. Goldsmith’s work illustrates that under these conditions, authorial identity—like corporate power—is not eliminated, but its function moves from production to the sharing and consumption of content. Goldsmith creates a poetry of the network economy that, ambivalently, both celebrates prosumers’ rights to copy whatever they please and humorously allegorizes the absurdity of these copy rights, which include the right to sing from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and to transcribe old news, traffic reports, and weather forecasts.56 Even as he parodies the limited freedom of copying in the network economy, however, Goldsmith also celebrates the power of the consumer as producer to transform banal texts into profound allegories of our contemporary condition. By mischaracterizing this power as “postidentity literature,” Goldsmith invited a critique that linked his, albeit ambivalent, cyberlibertarian utopianism to racial privilege. Hence Dorothy Wang attacks Goldsmith’s “myopic cluelessness about the privileges of his own subject position,” and Cathy Park Hong criticizes his, in James Baldwin’s words, “delusion of whiteness.”57 Such apparent cluelessness and delusion can equally be understood as the performance of a prosumerist identity associated with the right to copy, possess, and take pleasure from other texts. Goldsmith attracted Wang’s criticism because he inaccurately conflated the idea that individual subjectivity emerges out of a patchwork of experiences and texts with a perhaps unintentional dismissal of forms of collective identification, such as those of gender and race. He thereby also dismissed the long record of prejudice and privilege associated in the United States with the historical

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right of white men to represent and control the lives of others.58 It was, however, not conceptual writing’s critics, but arguably Place who first highlighted this conflation and linked Goldsmith’s prosumer poetry to masculine privilege and “whiteness as property.”59 About a decade after Goldsmith published his first copy works, Place began appropriating and redeploying the conceptualist conceit that allowed cool collection to allegorically transform a dull, everyday text into something greater than itself. The bedroom scene and gossip of Soliloquy were exceptions to the emphasis on boredom through which Goldsmith presented his work in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Midway through the decade, this cool, low-affect style had come to define the emergent school of conceptual writing—whether through Goldsmith’s brand of textual repetition and processing or through the more conceptually complex or virtuosic procedures of other white male conceptualist writers such as Craig Dworkin and Christian Bök.60 Goldsmith’s emphasis on “being boring” extended the low affect and conceptual vagueness of the “interesting,” a defining aesthetic category of the contemporary that first became recognizable as a style in 1960s and 1970s conceptual art, with its serial forms and minimalist content.61 A website like UbuWeb thrives on the lowpulse aesthetic of the interesting, which accommodates a vast range of cultural materials and is preeminently an aesthetic of circulation and of consumption as production. As weak affects, the interesting and boring minimize strong feelings about ownership and ethical or political meaning, so avoiding polarizing the networked community and limiting the potential for exchange. Rejecting Goldsmith’s emphasis on “being boring,” Place sought, like a tabloid newspaper editor, material that was likely to circulate for different reasons: by attracting maximum attention and controversy. In her words, she presented “hot content” in the “cold container” of conceptualism.62 Her strategy both extended and produced a kind of commentary on and trolling of the modernist masculinist poetics underlying conceptual practice. Place showed that the low-affect modes of the cool, interesting, and boring could be combined with the hot material of sexual and racial abuse and violence to achieve even more impact in the attention economy of our networked world. She simultaneously implied a troubling link between copy poetry and the violent possession of another’s body. Place came to prominence in literary circles in 2008 through the publication of her debut novel,

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La Medusa.63 Though not a work of conceptual writing, La Medusa was, like many of Goldsmith’s works, modeled on Joyce’s modernist allegory, which Place translated into the sexual and racial politics of early twentyfirst-century Los Angeles. Place’s first conceptual poem was arguably an excerpt from La Medusa: a long list of slang terms for vagina that she began using as a performance piece.64 In La Medusa Place’s list of vulgar words for vagina is spoken by a misogynistic and racist white male doctor whose pent-up frustration, when he seeks but fails to buy sex, leads to his outburst in a crowded restaurant. Whereas for Joyce or Goldsmith the detritus of the everyday and the pornographic image of the female body could be transformed into a larger allegory, Place’s vagina piece stays relentlessly with the female body and insistently associates male sexual violence with the conceptual gesture of repetition. Place would extend the theme of sexual violence presented through a cool conceptual container when she published Statement of Facts, a book comprising text that she herself produced for court in her role as an appellate defense lawyer specializing in representing convicted sexual offenders. As in her vagina piece, in Statement of Facts Place connects conceptual practice to the desire to violently possess the bodies of others.65 Emphasizing this connection, critics of Statement of Facts questioned whether Place extends that violence through a racist depiction of poor people of color.66 Affirming this critique, in a talk about Statement of Facts Place went on to associate copying and conceptual writing with the violence not only of rape but also of slavery.67 Similarly, she explicitly presented her copying of Gone with the Wind and other minstrelsy texts as an extension of Margaret Mitchell’s and white minstrelsy performers’ mimicry and rhetorical possession of black people. She thereby implied that the copy practices of conceptual writing marked what she presented as the seemingly inescapable and unchangeable structural racism of US society. Place connected conceptual writing to the historical intertwinement of commodity capitalism with slavery in the United States and the ongoing legacy of this history in the cultural logic of networked consumer desire and the attention economy. Under slavery in the United States, the “fungibility of the commodity”—its “replaceability and interchangeability”—made “the captive body an abstract and empty vessel vulnerable to the projection of others’ feelings, ideas, desires, and values.” Through their poetics of collection and allegory, Place implied, Goldsmith and other conceptual writers

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connected the prosumerism of the network economy to a similar appropriation of the raw material of other people’s bodies and texts and their transcoding into something greater and more abstract. Thanks in part to Place, Goldsmith would come to be read as echoing how, “as property, the dispossessed body of the enslaved is the surrogate for the master’s body . . . and acts as the sign of his power and dominion.” 68 Under pressure from Place’s success in garnering the attention and controversy that his own conceptual projects had previously enjoyed, Goldsmith sought to copy Place. He followed Place’s lead in turning away from boring, mundane texts in Seven American Deaths and Disasters (2013), a book that included edited television reports on high-profile deaths from John F. Kennedy to Michael Jackson.69 In 2015, in the climate of mounting outrage and protest against police shootings of black people, and following the January 2015 publication of the first two Mongrel Coalition attacks on the alleged racism of US conceptual writing, Goldsmith sought to augment his series with an eighth death: Michael Brown’s.70 In appropriating one of Brown’s autopsies, Goldsmith also adopted Place’s increasing emphasis on the “hot content” of racial politics. He thereby implicitly linked the aesthetics of the interesting and attention in the network economy; the copyleft values of consumer pleasure, reproduction, and exchange; and the alchemical genius of the collector-allegorist to what was received as a more obviously troubling form of consumption: the white possession of black people. Out of Goldsmith’s celebration of prosumer freedoms we can trace the cultural logic that would lead two decades later to his recitation of the Michael Brown autopsy and the resultant controversy over race and the  right to copy. When Goldsmith applied the freedom to copy and exchange in the network economy to Brown’s autopsy, he attracted the charge that his celebration of the right to copy echoed the history of racism and slavery in the United States. For some, the appropriation could be read as updating the abolitionist rhetorical mode in which “in making the other’s suffering one’s own, this suffering is occluded by the other’s obliteration,” and in which it is only “the white . . . body that makes the captive’s suffering visible and discernible.”71 Even worse, for one critic it was “a form of symbolic lynching” that recalled the literal “dismemberment and display of black bodies before white audiences.”72 Like his critics, Goldsmith presented his conceptual work allegorically. He claimed that his act of repetition

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transformed the autopsy report into something of greater significance, though for him this something was not lynching but literature. “I always massage dry texts to transform them into literature,” wrote Goldsmith after the performance.73 Goldsmith’s claimed transformation of so-called dry, dead, or inert text into literary gold—and his construction of a prosumerist identity out of the texts that he consumed—allowed his work to be read within the tradition of US racism in which the “black body” functions as “the vehicle of the other’s power, pleasure, and profit” and the guarantee of the master’s “disembodied universality.”74 Goldsmith in no way sought this charge. Place by contrast invited and insisted upon the equation of conceptual writing’s predilection for textual copying and allegory with white people’s historical possession and obliteration of black bodies. Whereas Goldsmith emphasized the utopian possibilities of copying, Place made copying stand for her dystopian analysis both of the structural racism of US society and of the network economy. For Place both these systems leave the individual powerless to do more than perpetuate the social and political status quo. Unable to do more than repeat the words of others, Goldsmith’s collector provided an apt allegory for Place’s bleak vision. TROLLING AND BULLSHIT

In 2009 Place and Goldsmith were both invited to contribute to a special section of Poetry magazine dedicated to conceptual writing. According to Place, she “submitted a portion of Statement of Facts.”75 The excerpt, “an appropriation of an appellate brief alluding to a child rape,” was rejected because of its—in the words of the editors that Place quotes—“negative portrayal.”76 She was told, “It’s too violent, you don’t tell the reader how they’re supposed to encounter this material, like child rape.” Instead she submitted “this Prissy speech from Gone with the Wind. . . . They had no problem with me appropriating a slave’s ventriloquized language and presenting it as a poem.”77 Poetry is one of the most prominent and longest-running literary journals in the United States and has a large audience.78 By publishing her poem, entitled “Miss Scarlett,” in Poetry, Place highlighted mainstream literary culture’s apparent acceptance of a fictional racist caricature stolen from a copyrighted text.79 She also linked conceptual writing’s celebration of the copy to the history of slavery in the United States.

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Since 2010, Place has repeatedly, though perhaps disingenuously, presented the rejection of her initial contribution to the 2009 special feature of Poetry as the origin of her Gone with the Wind project.80 This project involved a variety of reproductions of part or all of Margaret Mitchell’s text, and it included the Twitter feed that would become the main target for the Mongrel Coalition’s 2015 campaign against her work.81 Place’s framing suggests that the project was from very early on an exercise in trolling. In Internet trolling, the troll typically “tries to write something deceptive, but not blatantly so, in order to attract the maximum number of responses.”82 Trolling is most commonly used by white men to contest gender and racial equality and provoke outraged responses.83 But trolling can also be deployed for a variety of other purposes, such as revealing the unspoken assumptions of white male privilege: “By encouraging a suspected bigot and/or chauvinist to keep talking, interjecting only to goad the target into forwarding a stronger claim than he or she intended to disclose, feminist trolls are able to draw out the target’s true loyalties— knowledge that can then be used to challenge or otherwise discredit an offending argument or person.”84 Place’s work functioned to troll white conceptual poetry and its readers, revealing their unspoken toleration for racist discourse. I do not suggest that the trolling effect was entirely intended. In response to the attacks on her work, Place made the troubling claim that it was not meant to hurt people of color because it was intended for a limited, implicitly whites-only audience.85 In this respect, her project and her defense of it resemble that of a poet of a very different ilk, Tony Hoagland, who just a few years earlier defended his racist depiction of a black tennis player in very similar terms, claiming that it was intended only for a white audience, whom it was meant to shock by holding up a mirror to their own unacknowledged racism.86 In claiming that they were confronting white racism, both Place and Hoagland in fact echoed the whites-only ideology of Jim Crow segregation.87 Place, however, seemed to acknowledge rather than disavow her segregationist rhetoric, presenting her work as simultaneously perpetuating and calling out racism in avant-garde poetry.88 While Hoagland asserted the “truth-telling” honesty of his exposé of racism, and Goldsmith similarly emphasized the “truth” of his “powerful” adaptation of Brown’s autopsy, Place framed her work differently, or at least located her “truth-telling” and

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mirror holding at a further remove.89 Goldsmith, Place, and Hoagland all exemplify a “trend of work” that “endeavors to call attention to itself by employing racist sentiment or imagery. The racism expressed is designed to shock.” Goldsmith and Hoagland demonstrate how “this work is often defended as importantly honest or brave for ‘addressing race.’ ”90 By contrast, Place explicitly presented such work—including her own—as merely perpetuating racism: “I’m not parodying, I’m not rephrasing, I’m not adding artistic value.”91 Place insisted that she simply embodied racist discourse without trying to change even a single word, and she elsewhere presented her practice as a “poetics of radical evil.”92 She repeatedly argued that the reader must choose whether or not to read and how to respond to her work. She even went so far as to emphasize that many of her works were print on demand, which meant that it was up to the reader whether they circulated at all.93 Place’s use of Twitter exploited a similar prosumer copy logic that conflated producer and consumer. Each Twitter page displays prominently the numbers of followers and followed and enlarges the text size of shared tweets. Place’s Twitter feed was an exercise not just in copying but in drawing attention—while drawing that attention’s ethics into question. Place’s trolling is exemplary of an economy in which content becomes secondary to attention, measured in comments, likes, thumb stops, and other markers of networked exchange. “A common denominator in . . . trolling cases . . . is that trollers appear to enjoy the attention they receive, even—and perhaps especially—when it is unremittingly negative.”94 Read as a trolling of conceptual writing, Place’s success finally arrived in May 2015, when her work came under attack, generating vast amounts of negative attention that reverberated across the US poetry world and into mainstream media. Place’s account of the origins of her project suggests that it was deliberately designed to highlight the tolerance of racist texts and imagery within the US white poetic avant-garde. She further emphasized this trolling function retrospectively in her response to the Mongrel Coalition’s campaign against her work: “Until recently, there was no public or private objection to @VanessaPlace. It has had approximately 1200 followers for some time. . . . My minstrelsy was easily absorbed into the easy silences around so much everyday stuff that doesn’t matter to so many.”95 It took the Mongrel Coalition and the AWP petition against Place for the shaming effect of Place’s trolling to be realized and for her Twitter followers to

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plunge from a peak of over 1,300 in June 2015 to just 3 by the year’s end.96 It is in this sense that the political art projects of Vanessa Place and the Mongrel Coalition required one another: Place trolled conceptual writing and linked it explicitly with racism, prompting the Mongrel Coalition to call out the perceived racism of Place and other conceptual writers. Place’s trolling, on the one hand, prompted an articulate calling out of the racism of her work and of its supporters and, on the other hand, helped goad her defenders into ever more explicitly racist statements. Not only did Place possibly prompt Goldsmith’s performance of Brown’s autopsy, but she also, directly or indirectly, spurred high-profile defenders, such as Marjorie Perloff and Ron Silliman, into more extreme responses. In defending Goldsmith, for instance, Perloff reportedly emphasized that Brown was a “huge man” and “scary,” while Silliman responded to the attacks on Place by asking on his blog: “Are the signers of the petition to the AWP really that different from the police officer who fired at Michael Brown?”97 Silliman further extended his conflation of protesting racist speech with shooting people by giving his blog post the title “Je suis Vanessa.” Silliman here adopted the rhetoric of free speech, echoing both Goldsmith’s cyberlibertarian rhetoric about freedom from copyright and trollers’ frequent assertions of their right to post “abusive speech” because of the “freedom of expression” guaranteed under the US Constitution’s First Amendment.98 Place extended this claim to free expression in soliciting the support of the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), which on July 1, 2015, issued a statement, signed by Place’s supporters, condemning the removal of Place from the AWP committee and other scheduled readings and events.99 What seemed curious about the invocation of free speech, however, was that Place herself had repeatedly insisted on her unfree position as a mere “slavish” repeater of the “discourse of the master.”100 And she had equally emphasized the ethical onus on her audience and readership to choose how to respond, even if that meant not reading her work at all. Having insisted on the entrapping duality of either repetition or silence in a world of Twitter feeds, likes, and shares, she now faced silencing at the hands of the Mongrel Coalition’s Twitter feed and various online posts and manifestoes. Place’s first appropriation of Gone with the Wind, “Miss Scarlett,” also emerged from the rejection and so silencing of her work and is itself about the silencing of other voices. Part of the poem reads:

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Dey’s fightin’ at Jonesboro, Miss Scarlett! Dey say our gempumus is gittin’ beat. Oh, Gawd, Miss Scarlett! Whut’ll happen ter Maw an’ Poke? Oh, Gawd, Miss Scarlett! Whut’ll happen ter us effen de Yankees gits hyah? Oh, Gawd—Ah ain’ nebber seed him, Miss Scarlett. No’m, he ain’ at de horsepittle.101

The same passage in the original reads: “Dey’s fightin’ at Jonesboro, Miss Scarlett! Dey say our gempmums is gittin’ beat. Oh, Gawd, Miss Scarlett! Whut’ll happen ter Maw an’ Poke? Oh, Gawd, Miss Scarlett! Whut’ll happen ter us effen de Yankees gits hyah? Oh, Gawd—” Scarlett clapped a hand over the blubbery mouth. “For God’s sake, hush!” Yes, what would happen to them if the Yankees came—what would happen to Tara? She pushed the thought firmly back into her mind and grappled with the more pressing emergency. If she thought of these things, she’d begin to scream and bawl like Prissy. “Where’s Dr. Meade? When’s he coming?” “Ah ain’ nebber seed him, Miss Scarlett.” “What!” “No’m, he ain’ at de horsepittle.”102

In copying Mitchell’s text, Place highlights the fundamental anxieties about copying at the heart of Gone with the Wind: its purported mimesis of the antebellum South, including its mimicry of the era’s African American speech, and its anxious attempt to police the boundary between white speech and its black counterpart. This poetics of racial mimicry, of blackface, historically in the United States marked the “intercourse between racial cultures” as “at once so attractive and so threatening as to require a cultural marker or visible sign of cultural interaction.”103 Actual blackface performances began to fade out from the 1920s onward and so were already becoming outdated in Mitchell’s time. Yet the condition of attraction and fear, cultural mixing and segregationist thinking, marked by Mitchell’s dialogue arguably remains a part of racial politics and of cultural whiteness

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in the United States.104 Place’s re-presentation not just of Gone with the Wind but of a number of minstrelsy texts reflects such an analysis of the persistence of structural racism and, seemingly, attempts to make that racism legible by returning to some of its most visibly recognizable and shocking representations. Blackface minstrelsy functioned as a mechanism for racial and cultural control and demarcation, a mechanism that is central not only to Gone with the Wind but also, Place implies, to her and other conceptualists’ acts of copying. In “Miss Scarlett” Place’s selective copying silences Scarlett and the narrator. Place deletes sentences like “ ‘Some day, I’m going to take a strap to that little wench,’ thought Scarlett savagely, hurrying down the stairs to meet her.”105 Brian Reed takes the poem to show how “Mitchell’s Prissy, notorious as a racist caricature, might have been giving voice to a different and oppositional perspective all along.”106 Read in this way, Place eliminates and reverses Scarlett’s smothering of Prissy’s speech with her hand—a strategy that Place elsewhere extends to what she terms a “white out” of the entire text, involving a silent performance piece that she concludes by reading aloud the book’s famous final phrase: “Tomorrow is another day.”107 Where Mitchell has Scarlett clap “a hand over the blubbery mouth” of the maid Prissy, in “Miss Scarlett” Place performs another “white out” by metaphorically clapping a hand over Scarlett’s and the narrator’s mouths. But by using only Prissy’s words, Place equally increases our focus on her subservience, broken speech, deferral to “Miss Scarlett,” and her fear. Butterfly McQueen, who played Prissy in the movie adaptation of the novel, felt this way. McQueen eventually got so sick of repeating such stereotyped dialogue in her acting roles that she gave up acting altogether—silencing herself in order not to perform her own obliteration, in order not to white herself out.108 In repeating Mitchell’s words, Place, like Prissy, seems to adopt a position of subservience. Place copies Mitchell’s text, while Scarlett demands that her slave Prissy follow instructions. Yet as a white author repeating this caricatured imitation of black speech, Place also implies that she inevitably occupies the same position as Mitchell: the white master in blackface. Place might be seen here as playing a double game. On the one hand, she embodies the position of structural privilege and institutional racism. If “the donning of blackface restaged the seizure and possession of the black

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body for the other’s use and enjoyment,” then Place’s copying of blackface representations—in text and image—might be seen as merely repeating the act of possession that lies at the heart of blackface minstrelsy and of white privilege and black oppression in the United States.109 On the other hand, Place uses copying to ironically distance herself from the texts she presents by purporting, in one of her favorite metaphors, to hold a mirror up to conceptual writing and its readers.110 In another piece from her Gone with the Wind project, published around the same time as “Miss Scarlett,” Place explicitly links conceptual writing’s appropriation of other texts to the white possession of the black body in slavery and blackface. In this work she presents all the passages from Gone with the Wind with the N-word. In introducing this highly offensive appropriation, Place claimed to be stealing Mitchell’s slaves and placing them in a “slave block” of text.111 In “Miss Scarlett” Place further implies that conceptual writing as a whole evinces white privilege by presenting a form of textual appropriation, excision, and deletion that echoes rather than rejects Mitchell’s act of racial caricature. In “Miss Scarlett” Place chooses to quote from a passage that highlights the danger of easy distinctions between a racist text and a critical or ironic presentation of that text. Mitchell’s passage depends on the contrast between the white and black women—a difference reinforced by the exaggerated distinction between dialect and Standard English in their speech and underscored by lines in which Mitchell stresses the importance of the distinction. “If she [Scarlett] thought of these things,” the narrator reports, “she’d begin to scream and bawl like Prissy.” The anxiety about copying the other is also staged through Scarlett’s repetition of Prissy’s question: “Yes, what would happen to them if the Yankees came”? Scarlett’s question is an almost verbatim repetition of Prissy’s phrase translated out of dialect speech into Standard English. Scarlett and Mitchell stage a central contradiction of blackface: white people reiterated and possessed the black body and voice in order to explore “otherwise forbidden” desires, while simultaneously asserting their “sense of moral and racial superiority.”112 Likewise, Place presents her text both as merely perpetuating racism—and therefore embodying the forbidden racism of her liberal white readers (in her words, “the cruel gift of giving the thing they did not want to see or hear”)—and as offering a morally superior critical commentary on racism.113

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Through this combination of repetition and differentiation, Place further perpetuates the cultural logic of blackface. The passage turns on Scarlett repeating but also heroically differentiating herself from Prissy’s words. By choosing this passage as representative of conceptual writing, Place connects such heroic acts of repetition and differentiation to the allegory of the collector as hero that Goldsmith’s work had helped make a defining feature of Anglophone conceptual writing. Place thereby suggests a connection between conceptual writers’ cool mastery of their materials and Scarlett’s position as master of Prissy. Place emphasizes and questions conceptual writers’ ironic distancing from and mastery of their materials by connecting that mastery to white power. In deleting Scarlett’s words, Place extends Scarlett’s racist fear of contamination by completely segregating the black from the white speech. Place’s own speech thereby merges with the racist predecessors whom she repeats and reframes—not just by repeating Mitchell’s words but also by repeating and extending Mitchell’s poetics of racial segregation. To the divide between dialect and Standard English and the distancing device of historical fiction, Place adds the distancing device of mere copying and the complete segregation of Prissy by the excision of her speech and the deletion of the narrator’s and Scarlett’s interpolations. Mitchell distances Scarlett from Prissy by having her repeat and reframe the other’s words. Place as a conceptual writer presents her attempt to distance herself from Mitchell by selectively copying her words as only reinforcing the original text’s racist cultural logic by further segregating the text. Consequently, according to the copy logic that Place presents, any claim that she achieves critical distance in re-presenting Mitchell’s text relies precisely on the poetics of mastery and segregation that Mitchell deploys. Since all the words are the same (aside from the mistyping of “gempmums” as “gempumus”), in order to segregate Place’s text from Mitchell’s, a reader must rely purely on context and on an interpretation of Place’s intentions—on a reading of Place as adopting precisely the parodic or ironic position that she denies. Place, in other words, presents racist discourse not in order to critique it but in order to show its persistence in US society, including in the practice of conceptual writing. Yet by inviting a defense of her work for its ironic, distanced relation to the racism it presents—that is, for being “brave for ‘addressing race’ ”—Place also depends on the response of her white readers, who in their defenses

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further expose the structural racism and segregationist instincts of US society and poetry. As well as revealing Poetry magazine’s and its readers’ apparent tolerance for blackface, “Miss Scarlett” trolls for defenses of Place’s appropriation on the grounds of its alleged critical relation to Mitchell’s text and the blackface tradition—as in Reed’s account of Place’s poem as an assertion of black power in which the white protagonist is silenced.114 By insisting on holding a mirror up to the white appropriation of black bodies by repeating that appropriation, Place underscores the “repressive underside of an optics of morality that insists upon the other as a mirror of the self and that in order to recognize suffering must substitute the self for the other.”115 Place thus presents a bleak, dystopian view of the device of copying: as a figure for a racist system that we perpetuate even, or especially, when we seek to resist it. In this trolling of the interpretative instincts and expectations of white readers of conceptual poetry, Place ups the stakes of what might be termed the Warholian tradition of “avant-garde bullshit” by applying that tradition to racial politics. In the tradition of “Warholian bullshit,” authors present often appropriated material without explaining their intentions, so leading the audience into “looking for . . . more where less is being offered, for . . . depth where we are given merely surface.” If “bullshitters . . . counterfeit their authenticity,” then bullshit functions as a kind of artistic corollary of the networked world of social media.116 Like avant-garde bullshitters, social media privilege “rhetorically persuasive” self-presentations, even as they enable counterfeit identities, news, and ideas to circulate with increasing frequency.117 In this respect, avant-garde bullshit resembles Internet trolling. Like trolling, avant-garde bullshit relies on the simulation of intention and a disavowal of identity. And like trolling, avant-garde bullshit provokes attacks and vilification. According to David Kaufmann, Place deploys Warholian bullshit so that “the audience must pay great attention to the object matter that has been chosen and the possible range of stances that the author and the audience might take towards that object matter. Unless you short-circuit the process and dismiss the work out of hand, there is no place to rest here, only the insistent question of what you are supposed to do, of how you are supposed to react.”118 Yet Place makes the reader’s position even more discomforting than Kaufmann suggests. She presents texts that cry out to be vilified and

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dismissed because of their racist material and offensive character. Nevertheless, if one pays attention to the object—in this case the delineation between Scarlett and Prissy in Gone with the Wind—then one encounters a text in which outright dismissal is the rhetorical engine of the racist ideology of segregation. Yet in performing such a reading, one also reiterates the white privilege to transmute black bodies into abstract ideas—which might in turn suggest that the only ethical reaction is outright dismissal. Place thereby expands the reader’s discomfort by making both reading and refusing to read the text deeply problematic choices. Place not only deploys the avant-garde mode of bullshit but highlights how the structure of avant-garde bullshit combines autonomous copied language and identity politics: how it wends between an evacuation of responsibility and the insistent desire to interpret the artist’s and reader’s intentions and to hold them to ethical account. Place’s practice suggests that avant-garde bullshit blinds the author and audience to their responsibility for the use of material no matter how exploitative, racist, demeaning, and so on. Anything goes because responsibility is always forestalled by the possibility of an ironic or critical meaning behind the ostensibly offensive material. Yet that same structure of bullshit is also predicated on an incessant desire to determine and interrogate the intentions of the author and the audience: to link acts of copying to the politics of identity. In copying Gone with the Wind, Place breaches copyright, but she also asks hard political and ethical questions about Goldsmith’s celebration of freedom from copyright and identity. Instead of portraying appropriation as liberating, Place presents the right to copy as deeply troubling. In explaining her Gone with the Wind project, Place cited the Mitchell estate’s litigious and failed attempt to silence Alice Randall’s The Wind Done Gone (a critical rewriting of the novel from an African American perspective). Yet Place’s copying was not about the freedom to remake and reform past texts but about entrapping repetition. By copying Mitchell, she linked the prosumer desire, expressed in Goldsmith’s work, to construct one’s own identity out of the copying and sharing of others’ texts to the historical violence of slavery. In making this link, Place reiterated and extended the binary logic of Mitchell’s text with its emphasis on the absolute difference between black and white, master and slave. In variously reiterating or erasing the text of Gone with the Wind, Place presented the limited options of either repeating a racist text or silencing it.

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Place framed her copy practice as openly underscoring the inevitable repetition of racist discourse and so as part of a larger system of repetitions in which her audience’s complicity or outrage were also implicated. To implicate her audience, Place “sets a trap for critics of her work,” making it “easy for her critics to misunderstand her.”119 As a result, her work was widely misunderstood—by her defenders, who often claimed she was critiquing racism, and by her critics, in that they often claimed she had failed in her attempt to critique racism and ended up merely perpetuating it. In fact, Place openly acknowledged that she was merely repeating racist discourse and not parodying or ironizing it. She also anticipated and invited the charge that conceptual writing extended a long tradition of white avantgardists’ appropriation of blackness through racial mimicry.120 Underscoring this tradition of appropriation, Place had herself, for instance, combined minstrelsy with overtly racist avant-garde texts, such as Ezra Pound’s anti-Semitic Italian cantos.121 To note her critics’ misunderstanding is not to dismiss the charges of racism against Place, but rather to emphasize that she anticipated those charges. Following the same copy logic as Goldsmith, Place too claimed to hold a mirror up to the unpleasant “truth” of racism. But through her act of mirroring she also sought, like some of her critics, to implicate her own practice and the entirety of conceptual writing and white avant-garde privilege. Place showed how, like Gone with the Wind, the avant-garde practice of conceptual writing could provide a protected space for repeating racist discourse. Whereas Gone with the Wind creates this space through novelistic romance and nostalgia for the antebellum South, conceptual writing’s openness to racist discourse derives from its gesture of mere repetition and its insistence on the right to copy anything at all—the cultural logic that informs network capitalism’s transformation of texts and people into fungible commodities for exchange. The morally questionable success of Place’s intervention is demonstrated by her trolling of the most prominent Anglophone conceptual writer, Goldsmith. When Goldsmith turned to a text similarly charged with racial politics, he showed the same desire for attention and the same indifference to any limits on the right to copy. Place, in other words, seems to have anticipated and realized the charge that her work eventually attracted: that conceptual writing is inherently racist.122

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MASTER AND SLAVE

In Black Skin, White Masks Frantz Fanon criticizes Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s account of the relationship between master and slave as inadequate to the real history of slavery. Hegel attributed to the slave the power to recognize the master. But according to Fanon, what the master “wants from the slave is not recognition but work. . . . The Negro wants to be like the master. Therefore he is less independent than the Hegelian slave.”123 Two decades later, Brathwaite would echo Fanon’s analysis of the imitative desire that rendered the middle-class descendants of slaves “less independent”: “Anxious to be ‘seen’ by their masters, the élite blacks and the mass of the free coloureds . . . conceived of visibility through the lenses of their masters’ already uncertain vision as a form of ‘greyness’—an imitation of an imitation.”124 A similar analysis of entrapping racial mimicry informs Place’s poetics of the copy. For Place, as for Brathwaite, the relationship between master and slave and their descendants is one not of recognition but of repetition. Yet in traveling from Brathwaite to Place, the poetry of iteration has been transformed from a source of liberation into a dystopian performance of the entrapment that it was meant to diagnose and overthrow. “I have posited a discourse of the slave as the discourse of conceptualism,” Place writes, transmuting the history of slavery into a dystopian account of herself as an allegorical conceptualist-slave. Since Place’s “slave repeats” and nothing more, the “slave” is “the mirror-image of the . . . master’s discourse.” Any escape from the pernicious master-slave relation is therefore impossible. In repeating racist texts, Place affirms this dystopian understanding of racial politics in the United States and of Hegel’s account of the relationship between master and slave.125 She also derives this dystopian view from Jacques Lacan, for whom the subject is a “slave” imprisoned within the repetitive conditions of language itself.126 For Place, in other words, US racial politics and the master-slave relation are impervious to change, despite the actual history of emancipation and the struggle for black rights in the United States.127 For all her depiction of master-slave power relations as resistant to historical change, however, Place actually engages in a historically locatable contestation of the role of the copy. Place claims the position of the slave in

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order to attack Goldsmith and other writers’ cyberlibertarian celebration of copying regardless of legal copyright or moral right. In “How It Is” in Common Tongues, for example, John Cayley and Daniel C. Howe reproduce the text of Beckett’s How It Is, sourced from websites and claimed as “Copyleft, 2012: The Natural Language Liberation Front.” The copyleft notice includes the following statement: “No civil or moral rights are asserted in respect to this literary artifact. Any relationships between elements of the inscribed language in this publication and those in any other publication are generated from orthothetic links into publicly accessible records from the great inalienable linguistic commons.”128 Though invoked by Cayley and Howe, Bernard Stiegler’s term “orthothetic” in fact echoes Place’s appropriation of the figure of the slave to describe the position of the consumer in the network economy. Orthothetic denotes “ ‘exact’ forms of recording,” from “photography and phonography, to that of computer processing.”129 For Stiegler such technologies are violent and alienating because they allow one to receive “audiovisual messages without having the ability to produce them oneself.”130 Thanks to the use of these technologies, the “proletariat is an economic actor without memory and, so, without knowledge,” who relinquishes “knowledge to the gesture-reproducing machine.” And so “without any knowledge of its workings, the proletariat becomes a slave once again.”131 Like Stiegler, Place appropriates the figure of the slave in order to emphasize the master discourse of prosumer capitalism. For Place, the apparent freedom to consume—and, as in Goldsmith’s or Cayley and Howe’s work, to produce anew via consumption—is belied by the entrapping logic of endless repetition that governs both racial politics and the digital economy. In attacking conceptual writing, the Mongrel Coalition intervened in the implicit debate between Goldsmith and Place about the uses of the device of repetition and its relationship to forms of power and authority in the digital age. The Mongrel Coalition’s response to Goldsmith and “white conceptualism” at first glance appears to confirm the cultural logic of network capitalism by adopting the same techniques of copying. The Mongrel Coalition, for instance, knowingly echoed Place’s own rhetoric of negation and repetition in its response to Goldsmith’s March 13, 2015, performance, published on its website within three days of the reading. It titled this initial response “The Mongrel Coalition Killed Conceptualism.”132 The title echoed Place’s own assertion that “Vanessa Place killed poetry” (which

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Place cited as “anonymous, via Twitter”) and “Poetry is dead, I killed it”—itself an echo of the Dada slogan “art is dead.”133 In choosing this title, the Mongrel Coalition asserted its own agency in trolling Goldsmith through its first two manifestoes, published in January of the same year. Rather than presenting Goldsmith’s performance as self-destructive, the Mongrel Coalition’s title suggested that its manifestoes had goaded him into his performance and so into making visible what it alleged was the underlying racism of conceptual writing. Yet in making this assertion, the coalition also echoed Place’s rhetoric of mastery and bodily silencing (“killed”) by deploying the same copy tactics. Perhaps recognizing the pervasiveness of the copy, the Mongrel Coalition responded with its own copy poem, “The Best Conceptual Poem of  the Year: Interrupting the Maintenance of White Supremacy,” which appeared on the coalition’s website a couple of weeks after Goldsmith’s March 2015 performance of “The Body of Michael Brown.” “The Best Conceptual Poem of the Year” comprises a brief framing text, an audio file, and a series of images. The audio file contains laughter and comments from the recorded discussion following Goldsmith’s March  13 performance at Brown University; speeches given at rallies in Ferguson, Missouri, after the shooting of Michael Brown; and Killer Mike’s (Michael Render’s) immediate onstage response (at the Ready Room, St. Louis, Missouri, on November 25, 2014) to the Ferguson grand jury’s announcement that Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot Brown, would not be charged.134 Echoing these audio juxtapositions, the poem also includes a visual montage of eight images. Four identical images show artist Makode Alexander Joel Linde’s Painful Cake (2012), in which Linde dressed up in blackface as the head of a cake molded in the shape of a caricatured black woman. The other four images are photos shared on social media depicting “hands up, don’t shoot” protests in response to the shooting of Michael Brown.135 In the framing text, the Mongrel Coalition claims to seek “THE DESTRUCTION OF WHITE SUPREMACY AND ITS ‘AESTHETIC QUESTIONS’ ” yet simultaneously raises a question about the relationship between politics and aesthetics: “Considering artistic activities while observing the actual cultural, societal, political and economical processes, how can POETRY actively make a contribution to the challenges of our time?” The Mongrel Coalition’s answer to this question is

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“BY ACTIVELY INTERRUPTING THE MAINTENANCE OF WHITE SUPREMACY, BY CHALLENGING ALL FORMS OF COLONIZATION, BY USING THE OPPRESSOR’S TOOLS TO BURN DOWN THE HOUSE.”136 Here, “USING THE OPPRESSOR’S TOOLS” clearly implies the deployment of the aesthetic device of cut and paste—the same tool utilized by Goldsmith, Place, and other conceptual writers. The phrase “USING THE OPPRESSOR’S TOOLS TO BURN DOWN THE HOUSE” also alludes to a larger debate about the subversive or reactionary potential of repetition. The phrase responds to the title of Audre Lorde’s speech “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” given at a conference celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the publication of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex. In her speech Lorde attacks the conference organizers for their failure to address differences in race, sexuality, class, and age and to include “poor women, black and thirdworld women and lesbians” as speakers.137 Lorde also implicitly criticizes Beauvoir for adapting Hegel’s master-slave dialectic in a way that perpetuates binary power relations and conflates multiple forms of difference, including race, class, and sexuality.138 In The Second Sex Beauvoir notes that “certain passages where Hegel’s dialectic describes the relationship of master to slave would apply far better to the relationship of man to woman. . . . In reality, women have never pitted female values against male ones: it is men wanting to maintain masculine prerogatives who invented this division.”139 Hegel’s master-slave relation informs the work of a range of feminist writers, including Jessica Benjamin, one of the organizers of the 1979 Beauvoir conference. Benjamin describes the master-slave relation as embodying the “two basic relationships with an other (subject)” as “recognition and negation.”140 For Lorde such binary thinking threatens to become not merely a tool to diagnose a fundamentally unequal system but what she terms “a tragic repetition of racist patriarchal thought.”141 Like Lorde, Place and the Mongrel Coalition were concerned with how acts of apparent protest can end up repeating the very power relations they seek to overthrow. Lorde and later feminist thinkers like Allison Weir criticize the Alexandre Kojève–inflected reading of Hegel’s master-slave relation and its influence on Beauvoir, Jessica Benjamin, and others. Place seems to share Lorde’s analysis of the entrapping logic of the master-slave relation. Unlike Lorde, however, Place does not seek an alternative form of

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relation but instead takes the entrapping logic to its extreme conclusion. Place implies that to assert with Beauvoir the right of women “to be recognized as existents just like men” is merely to reinforce the position of the master. Place extends this analysis in her Boycott project, in which she rewrites part of The Second Sex by replacing all feminine nouns and pronouns with their masculine counterparts.142 In citing and inverting Lorde, the Mongrel Coalition takes issue with the dystopian analysis that informs both Place’s and Lorde’s emphasis on the dangers of repeating the discourse of the master. At the same time, the Mongrel Coalition adopts a position on the copy that partly fuses Place’s dystopian and Lorde’s utopian responses to this danger. Whereas Place posits repetition of the master as inescapable, Lorde locates liberation only in forms of mutual engagement with difference that lie in a utopian space outside mastery: “a world in which we can all flourish” but that can only be achieved by making “common cause with those . . . outside the structures” of the master.143 Like Place, the Mongrel Coalition implies that there is no “outside” and that it must therefore use the “master’s tools,” including the device of copying and the digital technologies and social media that enable it. But the Mongrel Coalition rejects Place’s and Lorde’s view that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” It draws on Lorde’s belief in the possibility of liberation but, like Place, rejects the idea of a space outside the master’s system. Instead, it locates liberation within, not outside, the “structures” of mastery. In this respect, its utopianism about the possibility of using repetition and copying as a tool of liberation recalls Goldsmith—who writes about “forcing poetry to become a driver of discourse, at once fondly caressing these institutions, while at the same time driving a stake into their backs.”144 Yet the Mongrel Coalition’s very citation of Lorde reflects a more skeptical view of Goldsmith’s cyberlibertarianism and his claim to have “learned to stop worrying and love the institution.” Underlying these different political and aesthetic responses are two competing accounts of the copy: as the mere repetition of the master, and as the subversion of the conditions of mastery. While Place and Goldsmith present extreme aesthetic embodiments of these contrary accounts, the Mongrel Coalition adopts and adapts elements of both positions. In this respect, the coalition seems closer to Paul de Man in his reading of what

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Hegel termed the “language of slaves” as “a cause for hope: the grounds for the possibility of both complicit speech and change.” 145 Whereas Hegel, thinking of Aesop, described prose as the “language of slaves,” de Man influentially associated prose with the power of new modes of writing, particularly the novel, to overturn older literary forms, such as the epic.146 Aesthetic rebellion starts from lowly genres that subvert high-flown ones, as copying in conceptual writing subverts the ideology of the masterpiece. Yet the Mongrel Coalition also seeks to attack this association of conceptual writing with subversion and the conflation of philosophical and aesthetic questions with the actual history of slavery. The coalition both fuses and critically comments on Goldsmith’s and Place’s contrasting utopian and dystopian approaches to copying. The Mongrel Coalition uses copying to display the simultaneously liberating and entrapping power of the copy, and the coalition’s fusion of both positions is reflected in its deployment of the copy devices of montage and mash-up. Like Goldsmith’s reading and Place’s Twitter feed, “The Best Conceptual Poem of the Year” is a copy work that deploys cut and paste to present words and images addressing racism. All three works juxtapose text and image. But unlike Goldsmith and Place, the Mongrel Coalition provides a framing commentary for its copy work and juxtaposes contrasting sampled images and texts so that they comment critically on each other. Hence, the Mongrel Coalition claims that its poem “lacerates to INTERRUPT.” The phrase suggests the coalition’s disruption of Goldsmith’s Interrupt 3 performance by cutting up excerpts of a recording from that event and juxtaposing them to a mix of other recordings and images. “INTERRUPTING THE MAINTENANCE OF WHITE SUPREMACY,” in other words, is achieved through the iterative poetics of cut-up and remix.147 The Mongrel Coalition, for example, cuts up excerpts from the Interrupt 3 discussion to comment critically on how Goldsmith’s reading was accompanied by a projected image of Michael Brown. The audio text samples a discussant who claims that the image made Goldsmith’s reading seem relatively more respectful: “I definitely felt that including the portrait of Michael Brown changed the tone significantly for me; it would have felt far more disrespectful, I think, if we hadn’t had that picture.”148 However, the Mongrel Coalition counters this claim in a number of ways. First, it highlights the speaker’s emphasis on the presentation of image and text as an “aesthetic question” by sampling and repeating these two words five times.149

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These repetitions emphasize the disturbing reduction of a young man’s life to an “aesthetic question” and advance the poem’s stated aim: “THE DESTRUCTION OF WHITE SUPREMACY AND ITS ‘AESTHETIC QUESTIONS.’ ” This aim and the objection to the focus on the aesthetics of Goldsmith’s performance echo Amiri Baraka, who half a century earlier wrote: “The liberal white man’s objection to the theatre of the revolution (if he is ‘hip’ enough) will be on aesthetic grounds.”150 Yet the Mongrel Coalition mounts its attack on aesthetic questions via the same techniques of copying and juxtaposition deployed by Goldsmith. Whereas Goldsmith juxtaposes the image of Brown to the text of his autopsy report, the Mongrel Coalition uses sampling to attack Goldsmith’s and his audience’s treatment of Brown’s death as an “aesthetic question” and to contrast it with efforts for real political change in the wake of the Ferguson shooting. Alongside the repetitions of the phrase “aesthetic question,” the Mongrel Coalition samples and repeats the discussant’s word “disrespectful” at the conclusion of her statement. This sampling is followed by the words “we are sick of it” from Alexis Templeton’s speech on behalf of Millennial Activists United in Ferguson.151 Introduced earlier in the audio text at the conclusion of a longer sample from her speech, Templeton’s phrase “we are sick of it” regularly punctuates the first part of the recording. Templeton’s phrase serves as a strident answer to the sampled laughter from the Interrupt 3 discussion that is introduced within the opening seconds of the recording and that throughout the recording serves as a repeated reminder of how Goldsmith’s “The Body of Michael Brown” transformed a text about a dead black person into entertainment for a largely white audience. While the Mongrel Coalition generally juxtaposes the laughter and aesthetic questions of Goldsmith’s audience with the political engagement of the Ferguson speakers, it also deploys the sampled discussion to comment critically on Goldsmith’s performance. For example, the speaker from the audience who reportedly “made an impassioned comment about how this was a ‘spectacle’ ” is recorded as stating “I just felt like we were watching a butcher” and describing how the audience had been “held hostage here listening to this performance of brutality for thirty minutes.”152 In these moments, the discussant’s point of view seems to merge with Templeton’s looped sample: “we are sick of it.” By splicing the speeches and discussion together, the Mongrel Coalition connects Goldsmith’s “performance of brutality” to police brutality.

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The sound recording also connects both forms of brutality to the separation of aesthetics from politics. The audience for Goldsmith’s performance is presented as mainly encountering the politics of the Ferguson shooting through Goldsmith’s aesthetic framing. In one clip an audience member says that unless you were heavily involved “in the politics of what happened in Ferguson you wouldn’t sit down and read” the autopsy report, which was “a text that many of us wouldn’t have encountered otherwise.”153 The clips imply that Goldsmith’s performance extends a longstanding tradition in the United States that “requires that the white body be positioned in the place of the black body in order to make this suffering visible and intelligible.”154 Commentators on the controversy would elaborate this point, arguing “that Conceptual Poetry requires racialized bodies” and that Place and Goldsmith extend early twentieth-century avant-garde poets’ “primitivist racial fantasies,” inspired by “minstrel shows,” in which “whiteness granted itself the opportunity to meditate on, and revel in, what Saidiya Hartman has called ‘the spectacular nature of black suffering.’ ”155 In its poem the Mongrel Coalition deploys another sound-bite to stress the white audience’s failure to identify with the death of a black man: “The information I can’t hold or process in the same way as I would if it was the body of somebody that I knew and loved.”156 Through this sound-bite, the Mongrel Coalition implies that the failure to identify promotes the replacement of the black body with the white performer and, consequently, in Hartman’s words, “the other’s obliteration.”157 In this sense, the Mongrel Coalition here also repeats and extends Place’s association of avant-garde copy practice with blackface. The Mongrel Coalition’s mix of recordings suggests that the occlusion of the black man’s suffering by the white performer occurs alongside the occlusion of politics by aesthetics. The Mongrel Coalition stresses how Goldsmith transmutes copied words into a transcendent aesthetic, or what he terms “literature.”158 The recording includes sound-bites from speakers who discuss the “kind of spiritual association” suggested by Goldsmith’s “rocking as he was delivering the text” or who argue how “this has as much of a place in a poetry reading as, you know, The Wind in the Willows and my precious subjectivity or my precious parataxis or you know whatever.”159 The Mongrel Coalition contrasts this distanced, aestheticized discussion and claimed objectivity with impassioned political speeches from

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Ferguson. The coalition thereby aligns the Goldsmith discussion with the claimed objectivity of the grand jury that decided not to prosecute police officer Darren Wilson. The coalition implies this connection by devoting most of the final third of the audio poem to rapper and black rights campaigner Killer Mike’s preconcert speech responding to the announcement of the grand jury’s decision: You motherfuckers got me today. I knew it was coming. I knew when fucking Eric Holden decided to resign, I knew it wasn’t going to be good, but I got to tell you, you motherfuckers got me today [crowd noise]. You kicked me on my ass today because I have a twenty-year-old son, I have a twelve-year-old son, and I am so afraid for them. You motherfuckers. You motherfuckers [crowd noise]. . . . You motherfuckers got me bad. You got me bad. . . . When I stood in front of my wife and I hugged her and I cried. I thought baby, I said these motherfuckers got me today. And then I said.160

These impassioned lines accompanied by a vocally responsive crowd are immediately followed by a cool, quietly spoken sound-bite from the Goldsmith discussion: “I have to say the jury’s out for me.”161 Juxtaposed with Killer Mike’s speech (to which it is also linked by the echo of “I said” in “I have to say”), this statement directly links the grand jury’s pretense of objectivity to the Interrupt 3 panel and audience’s cool discussion, as emphasized in a sound-bite earlier in the recording: “We want objectivity here; we don’t want bias, no matter how political we feel about the situation.”162 Through the mix of these sound-bites, the Mongrel Coalition suggests that the call for objective and separate aesthetic and political judgments—a call that would be made by some, such as Aaron Kunin, in the ensuing debate about conceptual writing and race—echoes the pretense of objectivity in a US judicial system fundamentally shaped by racism and partisan political interests.163 In attacking how Goldsmith aestheticizes the autopsy report and Brown’s dead body, however, the Mongrel Coalition also raises the problem of how its own “Conceptual Poem” aestheticizes politics and the question of whether there is any essential difference between its and Goldsmith’s use of the copy. On the one hand, the coalition contrasts its approach with that of Goldsmith. It attacks Goldsmith’s aestheticizing gesture by juxtaposing

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the Interrupt 3 discussion with the political speeches at Ferguson. Whereas Goldsmith repeats a single, albeit modified, text and a single image without commentary, the Mongrel Coalition appropriates multiple audio texts and images and remixes them in such a way that they comment critically on each other. In this respect, the coalition places aesthetics in the service of politics, highlighting how copy poetry can be deployed in ways that emphasize, rather than occlude, clear political statements. This approach recognizes the dominance of copy culture but also stresses the copy’s potential to achieve not repetition of the status quo but revolutionary change. Yet the Mongrel Coalition deploys the copy devices of cut and paste and remixing in a way that also risks aestheticizing the use of repetition in the Ferguson speeches. In deploying the cut-and-paste techniques of Goldsmith and the looping effects of sampling, the Mongrel Coalition draws attention to the rhetorical device of repetition in all of these speeches and so the difficulty of differentiating revolution from repetition. Killer Mike builds his speech around a series of repeated words and phrases, including “I got to tell you” and “you motherfuckers got me today.” In her speech, Templeton repeats the phrase “we are sick of it” for emphasis, so prompting the looping of these lines throughout the first part of the Mongrel Coalition’s audio text. Likewise, the coalition includes parts of a recording in which Patrisse Cullors calls on the crowd to repeat after her a series of statements: “It is our duty to fight for freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love and support one another. We have nothing to lose but our chains.” Each sentence is spoken by Cullors and then repeated by the crowd. Cullors leads the crowd through the entire chant three times, each time at an increased volume, as the Mongrel Coalition emphasizes by including two entire rounds of the chant in its mix.164 The chant itself comes from Assata Olugbala Shakur, member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army, who in turn, of course, adapts the last line from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel’s 1848 Communist Manifesto.165 In sampling Cullors, the Mongrel Coalition echoes and emphasizes her aesthetically and politically powerful use of repetition to signify both historical struggle and contemporary solidarity. The Mongrel Coalition signals another series of repetitions and adaptations in the poem’s framing text, where it describes “our work” as “TAKING BACK TOMORROW.”166 This description echoes the words of Killer Mike at the end of the audio poem: “Motherfuckers will not own tomorrow.

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We will not live with your fear. We will not accept your pain. Motherfuckers will not own tomorrow.”167 By drawing a contrast with his previous refrain, “You motherfuckers got me today,” Killer Mike deploys the same repetition and contrast of tomorrow and today that structures, for instance, W. H. Auden’s “Spain 1937.”168 In the context of Place’s obsessive repetitions of Gone with the Wind, the Mongrel Coalition’s and Killer Mike’s words also recall the novel’s final phrase, “Tomorrow is another day.” Just as Martin Luther King Jr., consciously or not, opposed Mitchell’s assertion by claiming “tomorrow is today,” so the Mongrel Coalition reclaims tomorrow, while “TAKING BACK” repetition from conceptualist slavery.169 The coalition reminds us that conceptual writing does not own the copy,170 and it shows that the device of repetition is just as crucial to the political speech and rally as it is to the conceptual poem. This common deployment of repetition undermines the opposition between conceptual writing and the battle against white supremacy. But the similarities also allow the Mongrel Coalition to reclaim the device of repetition as fundamental to political speech and the poetics and politics of liberation. Fusing as well as subverting Place’s and Goldsmith’s contrasting approaches, the Mongrel Coalition makes the copy in its work a figure both for endless, inescapable repetition (signaled by the looped reiterations of “aesthetic questions,” “disrespectful,” and “we are sick of it”) and for the possibility of revolutionary change—emphasized by the future-oriented call-andresponse rallying cries of Killer Mike and Cullors. The cultural logic of the copy structured not just the Mongrel Coalition’s avant-garde rhetoric and “The Best Conceptual Poem of the Year” but also the social media practices through which the coalition’s message reached a wider audience. In the month following the publication of “The Best Conceptual Poem of the Year,” the Mongrel Coalition initiated a social media campaign against Place that evinced the same cultural logic of the copy. A key criticism of Place was that in reproducing hateful and hurtful images on her Twitter feed, she merely perpetuated the racist ideology underpinning them. Attacks on Place led to a proliferation of screenshots from her Twitter feed. Critics and defenders alike reproduced these screenshots. Screenshots were, for instance, copied into both the petition to “remove Vanessa Place from the AWP Los Angeles conference committee,” which attracted over two thousand signatures, and the National Coalition Against

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Censorship’s statement in support of Place.171 Although Place soon afterward made her Twitter feed private, the images remain publicly available as a result of these multiple reproductions. These multiple copies and the publicity surrounding them almost certainly helped Place’s Twitter feed banner reach a far larger audience than it would have otherwise. While the petition clearly reproduced these racist caricatures in order to criticize them, it in effect repeated the gesture for which Place was criticized: the copying of racist images and texts in order to oppose them. Since the objection to Place was that her appropriation and reproduction of the images constituted a racist retraumatizing and repossessive act, the copies of the images would only seem to perpetuate the problem. They thereby also seemed to affirm Place’s dystopian view that within a cultural system governed by the copy, all attempts to overthrow the master discourse end up merely repeating it. The Mongrel Coalition confronts the same problem of retraumatizing viral images in the image montage that constitutes part of “The Best Conceptual Poem of the Year.” In the foreground of the repeated image of Linde’s Painful Cake, the beaming Swedish minister of culture, Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth, appears with a spoon and a plate of the body-cake, which she seems to be feeding to Linde. In the background a crowd of smiling white people look on. By contrasting the “hands up, don’t shoot” protest pictures with the photograph of the Swedish crowd and minister smiling at Linde’s Painful Cake, the image montage echoes the contrast that the audio track draws between the largely white audience’s laughter at Goldsmith’s verbal dissection of a black body and the passion and pain expressed in the Ferguson protest speeches. The analogy between the audio and visual montages is, however, complicated by the differences between Linde’s Painful Cake and Goldsmith’s “The Body of Michael Brown.” A black Swedish artist, Linde was attacked for his retraumatizing use of racist caricature and his misogynistic exploitation of the female body-cake, which was cut up and genitally mutilated as part of the work.172 Yet the work was also praised for trolling and calling out the unacknowledged racism of the Swedish minister and of Swedish culture at large.173 In these respects, the Linde image— which also spread virally across the Internet and was widely vilified—more closely recalls Place’s work and her entrapping view of racism. Both Linde and Place troll for a white audience’s tolerance of and pleasure at viewing

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black caricature and black suffering and do so merely by repeating racist images. Yet by deploying strategies of jarring juxtaposition in text, audio, and image, the Mongrel Coalition’s copy poem also appeals to a more hopeful model of copy poetry, echoing, ironically enough, Goldsmith’s digital utopianism. Signifying the liberating potential of copy poetry and new media to construct collective identities and solidarity, the Mongrel Coalition includes “hands up, don’t shoot” images that were distributed across the Internet through Twitter and other social media. The coalition also samples Cullors’s words to the protesters in Ferguson: “Every tweet, every live stream you send out, we slowly chip away at the tired old racist system.”174 Repeated and remixed, these images and words suggest that the device of repetition and the copy practices of new media might serve not just as a source of entrapping repetition but also as a means of liberation. The Mongrel Coalition fused elements of both Goldsmith’s utopian and Place’s dystopian analyses of the copy logic of prosumer network capitalism. The coalition presented the copy as a tool for rebelling against—and not just repeating—the master. But it also reiterated the fact that any attempt today to overthrow white privilege and to assert the rights of all must engage the inescapable cultural logic of the copy. What unites Goldsmith’s emphasis on the prosumerist pleasures of the collector as maker, Place’s repetitions of racial mimicry, and the Mongrel Coalition’s “USING THE OPPRESSOR’S TOOLS TO BURN DOWN THE HOUSE” is their shared turn to the iterative poetics of repetition and appropriation in a world of digital networked media. The choice, in other words, is no longer whether to copy, but how to copy right. It is no accident, then, that the Mongrel Coalition made extensive use of the manifesto form. The manifesto “turns modernity on its axis to reveal its history not only as one of progress, but also as one of conflicts and repetitions.” The manifesto “disrupts the smooth temporal surface of modern history by marking for us precisely those moments when ‘history’ repeats itself, and also, conversely, when seemingly cogent historical moments break into nonsynchronous shards.” General Jean-Jacques Dessalines’s declaration of Haiti’s independence in 1804, for example, borrowed from the rhetoric of the French Revolution even as it highlighted the discontinuities and power differential between France and its colonies, and between the

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revolutionary rhetoric of universal liberation and the actuality of French racism.175 Similarly, the iterative logic adopted and adapted by Goldsmith, Place, and the Mongrel Coalition emphasizes not just inescapable historical repetitions but also the global power differentials that mark the variegated uses of copy poetry. These power differentials are evident in the satirical manifesto “The Ultimate Conceptualist Anthology,” in which the Mongrel Coalition attacked Mexican writer Jorge Carrión’s “Escrituras conceptuales: Un panorama” (“Conceptual Writings: An Overview”) as serving the needs of US imperialist conceptualism: “PANICKING MUST FIND SOME BROWN PEOPLE TO APPEASE THE NEOLIBERAL LOGIC OF MULTICULTURALISM. WHO WILL I TAKE AS TRIBUTE? . . . NOT RACIST. WE SELECTED MEXICO AS TRIBUTE. NOT RACIST. . . . WE ARE OBSESSED WITH OVERVIEWS BECAUSE WE KNOW NO ONE BELIEVES US BUT WE HAVE THE MONEY TO REWRITE HISTORY.”176 The Mongrel Coalition’s satire in turn attracted accusations of racism and imperialism. Cross-border US-Mexican writer Heriberto Yépez, for example, noted: “To insult, make invisible, threaten, to spit on the Mexican is a privilege that all North Americans have, regardless of their color or position.”177 One might argue that the Mongrel Coalition here simply recognizes the dynamics of a single and profoundly unequal world literary system that drives peripheral literatures to copy the center—that leads writers like Carrión to appeal to Goldsmith and Perloff to bolster their own cultural capital, so reinforcing the centrality and global reach of US cultural power. However, as Yépez suggests, the Mongrel Coalition also perpetuates this US-centric imperialist view by presenting Mexican writers as mere pawns in a US cultural game. The history of the rise of copy poetry tells a different story. Both Latin American and Russian literatures, for example, have long and strong traditions of appropriative poetics that predate by decades white Anglophone performance and conceptual writing.178 And as we have seen with Brathwaite, the modes of repetition, remix, and remediation developed in the postcolonial Anglophone world were copied and adapted by writers in the Anglophone cultural centers of London and New York. Seen in this light, copying is not merely an increasingly prevalent literary and cultural form but the key driver of global literary evolution today. Hence, so-called cultural centers come to mimic peripheries as much as, if not more than, the

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other way around. And the contestation of literary and cultural authority becomes a process of reframing, remediating, and recontextualizing copies. As with iterative form itself, as copies travel, their significance changes. In the twenty-first century, copies are increasingly proliferated and contested through digital media and through acts of translation across national, cultural, racial, and linguistic differences. These dual engines of copying most clearly coincide in machine translation—to whose iterative poetics I now turn.

Chapter Six

CHINESE ROOMS The Work of Poetry in an Age of Global Languages, Machine Translation, and Automatic Estrangement imagine that you are locked in a room and in this room are several baskets full of Chinese characters she is glad they are Chinese of course glad to continue Pound’s Orientalism there will be no punctuated vanishing points she is given only rules of syntax not semantic rules she is relieved of the burden of making meaning she need only make sense for the food to be pushed through the slot in the door it is thought that these are situations more familiar than we would like to think them to be in the new technologies and to men more than to women but it oddly feels quite normal —JOAN RETALLACK, “THE WOMAN IN THE CHINESE ROOM”

Strangely, even as the “Chinese room” became one of the most hotly contested thought experiments in late twentieth-century philosophy, almost no one paid attention to the word “Chinese” in its name. In 1980 John Searle described a room in which an English speaker who knows no Chinese is locked with a set of instructions for producing answers to questions posed in Chinese.1 These answers are indistinguishable from those of a native Chinese speaker and therefore pass Alan Turing’s test for whether a machine displays intelligence.2 Yet the English speaker understands neither the questions nor the answers. Searle argues that this thought experiment refutes the claim that a computer could ever “be literally said to understand and have other cognitive states” simply by virtue of being able to answer questions like a human.3 Searle claims to address the universal difference between mindless computation and the “intentional states” of the brain—between machine translation and human understanding.4 However, as Joan Retallack suggests, Searle’s argument is actually, albeit unintentionally, historically and culturally contingent. His Chinese room extends a long history of Western imaginings of the Chinese script from Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel to “Pound’s Orientalism,” both cited in Retallack’s poem.5 Retallack equally

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finds in Searle’s room an echo of how women have been locked into “maleimposed rules”—held “captive in a moment in history.” 6 Searle extends this Orientalist and patriarchal tradition by combining late twentieth-century anxieties about the entrapping qualities of new technology with a renewed interest in China traceable to the country’s reentry into the global economic system. Searle might have set out to write a universally applicable philosophical thought experiment. What he in fact wrote bears all the hallmarks of the iterative turn. Searle’s thought experiment contains not one but several rooms. In these rooms we find the twinning of cross-cultural imaginaries with new media technologies through the poetics of repetition. Rules are one form that repetition takes, and Searle’s imagined situation of purely algorithmic manipulation closely resembles the poetry of iteration. Searle’s rooms recall that mode of iterative poetics in which text is generated by applying a set of rules, as in Oulipo constraints such as N+7, many of Dmitri Prigov’s conceptual strategies, John Cayley’s running of randomized links, Caroline Bergvall’s copying out of first lines from translations of Dante’s Inferno, and Kenneth Goldsmith’s collection of texts ending in the schwa sound. Retallack emphasizes the possibilities of rule-based poetry by ending her poem with a page of evenly spaced paratactically arranged words that are ready, like Searle’s “baskets full of Chinese symbols,” for selection and rearrangement.7 Here, rather than mindless repetition, Retallack offers a vision of the generative potential of recombination. As both Searle and Retallack emphasize, however, rules can also be imagined as the opposite of thought. Retallack stresses Searle’s emphasis on mindless repetition through her near-verbatim reiteration of his words: “Imagine that you are locked in a room, and in this room are several baskets full of Chinese symbols.” In words paraphrased by Retallack, Searle continues: “Imagine . . . that you are given a rule book in English for manipulating these Chinese symbols. The rules specify the manipulations of the symbols purely formally, in terms of their syntax, not their semantics.”8 In Searle’s writing, as in the conceptual writing of Vanessa Place, rules function as a synecdoche for imprisonment and slavery—for a lack of thought and freedom. And like Place, Searle connects these unfree iterations to new technologies and to cultural, linguistic, and racial otherness. Whereas Place presents her repetitions as performing the entrapping cultural conditions

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of slavery and racism, Searle connects unthinking technology to mindless translation between languages and to the Chinese language in particular. Like Searle, poets who turn to repetition respond to two interlinked crises in authority: the crisis wrought by the increasing pace of globalization and the crisis engendered by the rise of new media technologies. As these crises intensified in the first two decades of the twenty-first century, so too did the iterative turn. In this chapter I consider how the iterative turn illuminates the consequences for literature of intensified globalization and increasingly ubiquitous digital technologies. I identify a new mode of poetry that parallels the rise of novels “born in translation,” books that are written in anticipation of simultaneous publication in multiple languages.9 For poetic works, the same forces of globalization and new media lead to iterative strategies marked by a shift from the mot juste and radical particulars of an earlier modernism to the iterative poetics of textual processing, networking, and translation. The previous chapters have traced the rise of iterative poetry, a history marked by the transformation of repetition from a method of liberation in Kamau Brathwaite’s poetics of postcolonial media to a performance of systematic entrapment in conceptual writing. This chapter considers how a range of twenty-first-century poets engage these contrary meanings of repetition. These poets explore and connect two questions: What does it mean to be human in an age of digital machines, and what is the place of language, tradition, and culture in an age of global networks? At first glance these two questions might seem quite separate and indeed to be based on antithetical assumptions. The first assumes a universal condition of humanity, the human mind, and its relation to digital technology. The second emphasizes the cultural and historical particularity of languages; geopolitical and cultural power imbalances; questions of race, gender, and class; and so on. Yet Western thought has for centuries blurred the distinction between these questions by appealing to racial, ethnic, and religious others to express its universalizing claims about the relationship between reproduction technologies and the human. Socrates cited the Egyptian script in complaining that the technology of writing leads students into unthinking repetition.10 Early modern Protestant reformers opposed the mindless repetition of the Latin liturgy to print technology through “the common trope of ‘imprinting,’ ” which they used “to stress the importance not of mere repetition, but of . . . active and heartfelt understanding.”11 Hegel

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argued that the technology of “alphabetic writing” enabled precise, conscious, and reflective thought by contrasting it with the Chinese script, which he claimed inhibited the “progress of the vocal language” and so of Chinese civilization.12 From the eighteenth century onward, China “marks the limit of the universal” in the Western imagination and makes a “consistent appearance . . . in relation to the general development of the idea of the modern human being.”13 While some, such as Hegel, sought to define Western progress by contrast with the Chinese script, many twentiethcentury writers and artists inverted this prejudice. Ezra Pound, Sergei Eisenstein, and William Burroughs, for example, all associated the Chinese script with the alleged universal, language-transcending power of media such as photography, cinema, and television.14 In so doing, they conflated the Chinese script with the challenge to the human posed by new media. In the final decades of the twentieth century, influential attempts to answer questions about the impact of technology on the human and on cultural tradition often turned out to be tightly imbricated: they conflated the conditions of knowledge in global networks with the relationship between Chinese and English. Four years after Searle’s “Chinese room” thought experiment, for example, Fredric Jameson published an equally influential essay that also connected Chinese to anxieties about a technological system beyond the comprehension of any individual. In “Postmodernism; or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism,” Jameson cited Bob Perelman’s 1981 poem “China,” a text that, like Searle’s thought experiment, is predicated on not understanding Chinese—in this case the text of a primer containing “simple four-color pictures of ‘the world’: family, kitchen, school, rivers, airports, etc.,” for which Perelman’s poem provides English captions.15 Jameson connected the alleged incomprehensibleness of Chinese (“a book . . . whose idiogrammatic captions remained a dead letter to him”) to the inability of the individual to “cognitively map” a world of increasingly complex electronic networks.16 Whereas Searle used Chinese to contrast human cognition with machine computation, Jameson deployed Chinese to emphasize the individual human’s inability to grasp the complexities of our networked, globalizing world. In 1984 Jameson described China as standing outside the electronic networks of postindustrial capitalism, but by 1990 Stephen Owen was citing contemporary Chinese poetry as exemplary of a new “world poetry,” written for translation and lacking any connection to its own language, culture, tradition, or history.17 Here, Owen took

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Chinese poetry as representative of the powerlessness of non-Western cultures and traditions to withstand the homogenizing and westernizing effects of globalization. In the late 1990s N. Katherine Hayles explicitly connected Searle’s metaphor to Jameson’s insistence on the impossibility of comprehending the totality of global networks: “The situation of modern humans is akin to that of Searle in the Chinese room, for every day we participate in systems whose total cognitive capacity exceeds our individual knowledge.”18 Hayles gives this situation a utopian inflection: participation in these systems allows individuals to give up their outdated humanist commitments and extend themselves through the network via digital prosthesis. Though their views differ markedly, Searle, Jameson, Owen, and Hayles all connect Chinese to technological and globalizing forces that lie beyond human cognition and control. More recently, Byung-Chul Han has connected the entire Chinese literary and artistic tradition to the culture of the copy. Han cites the contemporary Chinese art of shanzhai Ⱉ⮐, or “fakes”—whose myriad variations on well-known brands are enabled by today’s digital technologies. He celebrates how these fakes are “determined not by the discontinuity and suddenness of a new creation that completely breaks with the old, but by the playful enjoyment in modifying, varying, combining, and transforming the old.”19 Han claims that, because of its long tradition of copying and adaptation, Chinese culture in toto “is not committed to revolutionary ruptures and discontinuities, but to continuities and quiet transformations.”20 While seemingly contradicted by the ruptures and revolutions of twentieth-century Chinese history, Han’s claim illustrates how China continues to serve as a counterexample to the West and a figure through which today’s copy culture is imagined. It also suggests again how imaginings of new technology, China, and what it means to be human intertwine with present-day geopolitics. The idea that revolutionary change is un-Chinese or that—as Han also suggests—the Chinese concept of renquan Ṣ㪲 (human rights) signifies flexible adaptation to current conditions of power could all too easily be taken as a rejection of any change in the Communist Party’s ruling position in China today.21 The copy poetries that I examine here reflect this complex mix of geopolitics and poetics, in which the stakes of identity, copying, and authorship are shaped not just—as in the conceptual writing controversy—by the

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politics of one global superpower and language but by the relation between two. These poetries respond to a widespread sense of the pressures of new technologies and globalization and their association with translation into and between the global languages of Chinese and English. They reflect how Chinese has been reconceived as a “global medium,” constituting the only current serious rival to English as the dominant language of electronic media, including the Internet.22 Just as Chinese has historically marked “the limit of the universal” in the Western imagination, so Chinese and English today compete to be global languages of “universal access.”23 By seeking to encompass and accommodate each other, the two languages produce a global linguistic economy where value lies not in uniqueness but in linkage and exchange.24 A similar replacement of location with language and of the particular with translation occurs in the iterative poetries at the nexus of global English and global Chinese, including in the writings of Brandon Som, the Garbage School (Laji pai ✫⛦㳦) of poetry, Yi Sha Ẳ㱁, Jonathan Stalling, Hsia Yü ⢷⬯, and Tan Lin. These iterative poets move from what might be termed an avant-garde poetics of critical regionalism—examples of which range from Joyce to Language writing—to a practice of what I term critical translation. Critical regionalism contrasts with “uncritical versions of the ‘local’ that the modernist movement sought to overturn.” Instead, critical regionalism deploys the “formal device” of “radical particularity.” The radical particularity of “disjunct ‘bits’ of language” offers “a way of concretizing and comprehending” the disjunctions between different spaces.25 Such disjunctive bits of languages signify the radical particularity of place, while arguably also reflecting the fragmentation of the individual subject who, like the person in the Chinese room, cannot grasp an increasingly complex global system.26 By contrast, in recent iterative poets’ engagements with translation, I identify an approach to cognitive mapping that inverts modernist critical regionalism. These poets present not so much the overlay of radical particulars as interference patterns in the pathways of exchange. In these works cognition is distributed beyond the individual subject into the network, machine, system, or set of rules (such as homophonic translation).27 By overtly distributing cognition, these works transform critical regionalism into critical translation: the previous emphasis on location and region gives

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way to a new emphasis on networks of exchange. As with the new global novels that are “born in translation”—for which translation is “a condition of their production” and “a thematic, structural, conceptual, and sometimes even typographical device”—these poetic works adapt and invert older modernist practices to respond to global network capitalism in the twenty-first century.28 For poetic works that deploy critical translation, new technologies of machine translation and web cut and paste extend the universalist aspirations of modernism but also draw on the neoliberal globalizer’s dream of pure exchange. These iterative poetries are varyingly consensual or critical, but all give up modernist particularity in favor of the exchange value appropriate to their global languages. Their iterative modes can be grouped into two general, overlapping forms. First, some of these poetries deploy repetition and translation to undermine the cultural location of tradition and the radical particulars and mot juste of modernism in favor of rewriting, versioning, and exchange. These poetries use translation within and between Chinese and English to respond to the sense of entrapping repetition posed, on the one hand, by language and tradition and, on the other, by the homogenizing forces of globalization. Second, other iterative poetries use the noise of machine processing and translation to explore and question the sense of technological entrapment wrought by digital technologies and networks. These poetries favor mechanical modes of iteration, such as transliteration, digital cut and paste, and machine translation, through which they evacuate meaning to reveal the noise of language and the hum of exchange in a globalizing, networked world. Where the first mode emphasizes the individual in relation to a cultural and linguistic system, the second highlights how texts are shaped by media technologies. Together these two modes reveal how an extremely diverse range of contemporary poetic practices—from handcrafted lyrics to texts entirely composed by web cut and paste and machine processing—share a common iterative form and a common cultural logic. Both modes of critical translation can be understood as responses to the crisis in the conditions of knowledge and authority engendered by the intertwined forces of new technology and globalization. This crisis manifests especially strongly in copy poetry that addresses global Chinese and global English and their competition to be the language of universal access.

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IRON HOUSES

What happens when one listens to a poem in one language but transcribes the sounds in another? This question provides the starting point for Brandon Som’s poem “Oulipo.” “Oulipo” forms part of The Tribute Horse, a poetic meditation on his grandfather, who migrated to the United States under the pseudonym Som.29 His grandfather was one of the so-called paper sons: migrants who circumvented the ban on Chinese immigration by claiming to be children of US-born citizens. To gain entry to the United States, these paper sons memorized papers detailing their new identities, on which they were quizzed when entering the country. In an earlier poem in the collection, “Coaching Papers,” Som describes this process of memorization. In “Oulipo” Som extends his exploration of repetition without knowledge as the price of entry to another country and another language. In “Oulipo,” however, the process is bidirectional: the poem tells not only of his grandfather’s migration but also of the poet-grandson’s efforts to recover his ancestral past by reimagining his grandfather’s transoceanic, translingual voyage and by using English to mimic the sounds of one of the classics of Tang poetry, “Jing ye si” 朄⣄⿅ (“Quiet Night Thoughts”) by Li Bai 㛶䘥. In “Oulipo” Som complicates ideas of both Chinese and US belonging by exploring the interstitial places of migration and translation. “Oulipo” comprises eighteen quatrains, each of which is a different homophonic translation, an attempt to render the sounds of Li Bai’s four-line poem in English. The poem explores what happens when Chinese words are transcribed into English, as in Som’s adopted family name: I started writing homophonic poems because I was really interested in thinking about my last name as a kind of sound event. Often, not just in Chinese-American communities, but in all kinds of immigrant communities, you have narratives where names get changed when you cross a border and it’s often a narrative that focuses on the sonic event of transcribing a name into English. So when someone says a name out loud and someone translates that into letters, the name gets changed and transformed in that act of translation or transliteration. I initially started that project with that concept in mind and was thinking what if I did these translations in a similar way.30

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Som composed “Oulipo” while listening to the recording of “Quiet Night Thoughts” on the 1963 Folkways album Chinese Poems of the Tang and Sung Dynasties, as read by Lo Kung-Yuan, himself a migrant to the United States and the author of Nowhere Is My Home (1965).31 Like Som’s poem and Lo’s book, Li Bai’s “Quiet Night Thoughts” invokes a faraway home. Li Bai’s final couplet contrasts raising one’s head and seeing the moon with lowering one’s head and thinking of one’s “guxiang” 㓭悱 (“ancestral home” or “native place”). Doubtless because of its theme, as well as its popularity and length, one Chinese migrant chose to inscribe the poem “on the wall of Room 105 at the immigration station on Angel Island,” where migrants arriving in San Francisco were interred.32 Som notes the Angel Island inscription in his annotations to the poem, so connecting Li Bai’s thoughts of a faraway home to the false memories of home that migrants like Som’s grandfather had to construct to pass the tests administered by the immigration officials. These officials quizzed migrants and their sponsors on details such as the layout and occupants of their home village in an effort to distinguish between genuine and invented identities.33 Som’s title, “Oulipo,” also signals a series of displacements and translations that confound the search for a genuine home. Most obviously, the title refers to the acronym of the Ouvroir de littérature potentielle (Workshop of Potential Literature), the association of writers committed to devising rules for the generation of literary works. The allusion to Oulipo emphasizes the constraint of homophonic translation that Som deploys to signal the limits and artifice of his search for origins. In the context of Som’s homophonic translation of Li Bai’s poem, however, the title also reads as “ou Li Po,” French for “or Li Po,” where Li Po is a transliteration of the traditional pronunciation of “Li Bai.” Through this wordplay, Som presents the poem as a riddle: Is the poem located in the Western or Chinese tradition, in the tradition of Oulipo or Li Po? Som’s title, however, further complicates its relationship to tradition. In French “ou Li Po” sounds the same as “où Li Po,” or “where Li Po.” Read in this way, the phrase’s nonstandard grammatical construction, resulting from the omission of the conjugated verb est (is), also suggests the linguistic dislocation of a nonnative speaker or an imperfect translation, as well as the uncertainties of pronunciation produced both by the passage from Tang-era to modern Chinese and by differing systems of transliteration into Western languages. The question “Where Li Po?” might be taken to express,

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in broken French, the search for home, given that “Quiet Night Thoughts” constitutes a locus classicus of the Chinese literary tradition and of the yearning for home. Home and nativity are powerfully conceived in the Chinese tradition and language, in which a person like Som, born and raised in the United States, might, when traveling to China for the first time, be said to be “returning to his country” (huiguo ⚆⚳). In the poem, Som pays tribute to but also questions such essentialist notions of home, just as elsewhere he describes himself as “both Chinese-American and MexicanAmerican, or Chicano.”34 By attempting but failing to reproduce the sounds of Li Bai’s poem, he asserts his connection to and displacement from his ancestral homeland and the Chinese tradition. Taken together, these two readings of the title—“Oulipo” and “où Li Po”—suggest a third in which lipo might be interpreted as a back-formation from that well-known constraint favored by Oulipo writers, the lipogram. In the lipogram a writer must produce a text while avoiding the use of one or more letters. The word derives from gramma (letter) and lipo, meaning to lack, “to leave, be wanting.”35 Read in this way, the title asks not where is Li Po, not where is home and the poet’s Chinese heritage, but quite the opposite: What is left out? What is lost in translation? Som’s poem leaves out not letters but a language and a script; it lacks hanzi 㻊⫿ (Chinese characters) not gramma (letters). By replacing the script but attempting to retain the sounds, Som highlights the false though widespread Western belief, repeated even in a reading of his poem “Oulipo,” that “written Chinese uses ideograms, with no direct links to how the language sounds.”36 He thereby attunes the reader to the silences of, for instance, Ezra Pound’s account of Chinese poetry.37 But the poem also searches the terrain of absence more widely. What looked at first like a search for a displaced homeland now becomes a search for displacement itself; hence the poem’s circuitous route, which begins: So then me and you come You assured led by the tongue Dark fall a winding wind A detour circles song38

Som’s search involves indirection: “detour circles” and “winding,” which might describe a snaking path, but—further underscoring the poem’s

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shiftiness—could equally suggest a wind so strong it deprives one of breath. Som links such absences and indirections to sound and language: “tongue,” “wind,” and “song.” Following the rhyme scheme of Li Bai’s poem, Som chooses rhyme words—come, tongue, and song—that imply the poet’s invocation of the story of his grandfather’s migration and the sound and poetry of his Chinese language. Som also registers the failure of that invocation through the absent rhyme word Som, which appears nowhere in the eighteen stanzas or fifty-four similar rhyme words. The absence of the Somsong rhyme is all the more marked because it appears elsewhere in The Tribute Horse. “Coaching Papers” contains the lines “Som—aspirate, vowel, liquid” and “A name // is a persona, per son, per song” and concludes, “reciting to sound // out again the purchased names, / to hear what silence stowed away.”39 By contrast, “Oulipo” leaves it to the reader to sound out the purchased name in “song,” a word that in both poems also implies that unspoken perfect rhyme partner that lies at a further remove: Ong, the name the poet’s grandfather relinquished to enter the United States under the false name Som.40 Just as the poet Li Bai’s name (when spelled Li Po) signifies absence (lipo), so the absent but implied poet’s names (Som and Ong) figure the tenuousness of ancestral connection and the deception of a contrived identity—of a life, like the poem, composed on paper. In the first stanza Som translates Li Bai’s concluding rhyme word “home” (guxiang  㓭悱) into “song,” the most commonly recurring final rhyme word in the poem’s eighteen quatrains (eight of the stanzas end in “song” or, in one case, “songs”). By replacing “home”—a word absent from “Oulipo”—with “song,” Som emphasizes the music of translation and displacement over location and alludes to the migrant’s experience of the difference between Chinese and English and between Old and New World birdsong. (The poem contains several references to birds and birdsong, including “wren,” “junco,” and “coos.”)41 Through a series of mistaken identifications between Mandarin and English words, such as xiang 悱 (home) and “song,” the poem describes the case of deliberate mistaken identity that gave Som his name. Som repeatedly stresses these mistakes in lines such as “Lingo miscues song,” “This talk cites coos wrong,” “You sell wrong names here,” and even “Detuned doo-wop songs.” 42 The stilted English, emphasized by the partial observance of the five-syllable line of Li Bai’s poem, also points to a migrant’s difficulty in speaking a new language and in encountering prejudice: “Shut out wrong men here.” 43 Som reframes this

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prejudice, which forced paper migrants to buy “wrong names” and told them “you don’t belong,” into a song that celebrates and indeed is built from miscued, mistuned, and misused language.44 Som can remix language in this way because of the remediation made possible by sound recording. The oscillating movements described by words such as “winding,” “circles,” “circles songs,” and “tempos spiral” describe not only the waves of water and sound that traverse the space between China and the United States but also the rotating disc of Lo’s Folkways record, which Som remixes, just as a DJ might spin old “doo-wop songs.” 45 Som offers similarly surprising mixes of language by turns scientific (“Data research shows”), colloquial (“Tear shit up”), and poetically antiquated (“Leeward they have swung”).46 In the previous poem, Som writes, “All sound, / according to Aristotle, / is already echo.” 47 Here the entire poem is already an echo of another’s words, another poem, and another medium. The poem ends with the line “Echoes pseudo song,” vaguely echoing Li Bai’s final line (in modern Mandarin pronunciation): “Di tou si guxiang” Ỷ柕⿅㓭悱 (lower [my] head and think of home).48 The echoing line underscores the artifice and invention that happens in translation and in the effort to find one’s origins—as exemplified by the paper son’s invented identity and by the “pseudo song” of homophonic translation. Here again, iteration functions to give voice to the tension between singularity and system but also to undermine that binary: the systematic constraint of homophonic translation produces endless versions rather than the right words; it stresses change over location, songs over homes. The “songs” of “home” (xiang 悱) turn out to be phony. Som’s name is a pseudonym, and Som writes a search-for-origins poem about his grandfather that is also about phoniness. And of course, phoniness also suggests phonics, or sounds. These sounds include the “song,” which slant rhymes with Som, and the new sounds made in the encounter between the Sinophone and the Anglophone. Simultaneously, the accidents of sound that allow xiang 悱 to rhyme with “song” upset the artifice of the system and render the name Som a singular, though absent, point of sonic and historical connection. Som’s poem has its exotic local color, such as “wontons,” and eats it too in a poetry that is knowingly “pseudo,” false, and phony (“falsetto”), even as it tells a real ancestral history of migration and prejudice that forced the falsity in the first place.49 The poem has been read as asking, “Is the poet a ‘cuckoo,’ depriving Li Po’s Chinese-language heirs of the attention they

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should get instead?”50 Som and other iterative poetries, however, highlight the falsity of the dichotomy that underlies this question. “Oulipo” illustrates the transformation of a non-Western tradition and language into fodder for a contemporary US poem, but it also undoes this dichotomy by remixing a classic Tang poem with an Oulipo-like constraint. Som might seem to demand that the reader choose: Oulipo “or Li Po” (ou Li Po), Western modernism or the Chinese tradition. However, his title and poem encompass both options. By rewriting Li Bai, Som cites the Chinese literary tradition, but he also undoes the distinction between “pseudo” and true traditions. Som’s poem suggests that origins themselves are often forged and that claims to originality frequently hide further histories of copying. A canonical work of the Chinese literary tradition, Li Bai’s poem might seem incomparable to the copying and pseudo origins of Som’s modern rewriting. Yet Li Bai’s poem hints that home is faraway and perhaps even illusory. After all, in Li Bai’s poem the image that parallels the thought of home is frost in moonlight, a mere reflection of a reflection—a reflection, furthermore, that is never seen but only imputed. And of course, tradition itself is perpetuated through forms of repetition. In “Quiet Night Thoughts” Li Bai repeats a traditional form, the yuefu 㦪⹄, and the poem’s persistence across the centuries has in turn depended on its reiterations by myriad readers, from the anonymous copyist imprisoned on Angel Island a century ago to Som undertaking a contemporary English rewriting. Like Searle’s Chinese room, Som’s homophonic translation of Li Bai poses the question, What is the difference between knowing and merely repeating? All language is in a sense repetitive, of course, but in highlighting chance repetitions from one language to another, Som connects the distinction between mere mimicry and real understanding to the pernicious cultural prejudice that would contrast Western thought with mindless Chinese repetition. This prejudice replays in Owen’s attack on the derivativeness of world poetry (exemplified by modern Chinese poetry’s alleged copying of Western forms) and in accusations that Asian American and other so-called ethnic poets in the United States endlessly reiterate the same predictable poems about their ancestry.51 Whereas Som turns to the iterations of translation to negotiate the commonplace but false dichotomy between modernist innovation and cultural identity in US poetry, on the other side of the Pacific some mainland Chinese poets had a decade earlier extended Owen’s similarly dichotomizing

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critique of the kind of modern Chinese poetry represented by Bei Dao ⊿Ⲟ. For them, however, Bei Dao now signified not the loss of the Chinese tradition but its perpetuation, which they iconoclastically sought to overthrow through parodic repetition that celebrated rather than bemoaned the loss of location wrought by globalization and digital networks. In 2003 the following poem appeared in the first anthology of the Garbage School of poetry: 䫔ᶫ椾: 孕乫⮷䋒⣑ᶲ梆ᶨ椾 ˪䓇㳣˫ 孕乫⮷䋒⣑ᶲ梆

Seventh poem: A poem by Training Piglets to Fly in the Sky “Life” Training piglets to fly in the sky

The poem parodies one of Bei Dao’s most famous works, as the accompanying commentary makes clear: 㛎傏㳦孿Ṣ⊿ⱃḇ㚦ẍ˪䓇㳣˫ᷢ桀⅁孿炻ℭ⭡⎒㚱ᶨ᷒⫿烉“仹”ˤ㖞ẋ㭽䪇⇵徃Ḯˤ⤪㝄 徆⮷䋒ḇ⎗ẍ梆⇘⣑ᶲ⍣炻恋ᷰ塓⊿ⱃ奮ᷢ慵⌳䘬仹⍰䬿᷒Ṩᷰ炰✫⛦㳦孿Ṣ⮡⇵ᶨẋ 䘬崭崲䓙㬌⎗奩ˤ

Misty poet Bei Dao once wrote a poem entitled “Life” which consisted of only one word: “net.” Times, after all, have progressed. If even piglets can fly up into the sky, then what can that net, seen as so oppressive by Bei Dao, really count for! From this we can see how the Garbage School surpasses the previous generation.52

The replacement of the word “net” (wang 仹) reminds the reader that since Bei Dao’s poem was written the word has taken on a new meaning thanks to the rise of the Internet, which is known in mainland China as the hulianwang  Ḻ俼仹 or wangluo 仹亄.53 By replacing “wang” with a pseudonym, the poem highlights the virtual life of the Internet, including of the Garbage School itself, which first formed as an online network on the bulletin board system (BBS) Beijing pinglun ⊿Ṕ孬孢ġ(Beijing Review).54 Presented as representative of the school as a whole, the poem marks the shift away from Bei Dao’s emphasis on the precious printed word, whose special aura

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the poet underscored by surrounding the word wang with swirling, misty lines when it was published in 1979 in the groundbreaking unofficial literary journal Jintian Ṳ⣑ (Today; figure  6.1). Whereas at that time such unofficial publications were rare and precious commodities, the Garbage School’s BBS format emphasizes textual excess and exchange over aesthetic contemplation (figure  6.2). The poem’s Internet aesthetic and parodic form underscore the Garbage School’s contribution to the ongoing attacks on the elevated style of the first post-Mao generation of avantgarde poets, such as Bei Dao and Yang Lian 㣲䃱. The poem focuses not

FIGURE 6.1. “Life: A Net,” detail from Bei Dao, “Taiyang cheng zhaji,” 40. Mimeographed text and illustration.

FIGURE 6.2. Screenshot of main page of Beijing pinglun ⊿Ṕ孬孢 [Beijing review] bulletin board from August 2003, archived at the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, http: //web.archive .org /web /20030805195432 /http: //my.clubhi.com:80/bbs/661473

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on the mot juste of Bei Dao’s wang, but on the iterative poetry of refuse, recycling, and appropriation, as highlighted by the fact that the pseudonym is itself a translation. The pseudonym is based on the English idiom “when pigs fly,” whose literal translation produces a new sense of strangeness in Chinese. The Garbage School’s claim to have achieved the impossible—“training piglets to fly”—also involves reaching across the language barrier to English. The poem thus implicitly equates the new meaning of “net” (wang), brought about by technology and highlighted by the appropriation of Bei Dao’s poem, with the new meaning of pigs flying, brought about by the adaptation of this English idiom to Chinese. In this small example the poetics of iteration—here parodying a famous poem and repeating one’s name—is mobilized to comment on the conditions of poetry in our digital age, whose strangeness is also asserted by the implicit appeal to another language, English. The Garbage School poem is only one of a number of parodies of Bei Dao’s work that date back to the 1980s.55 The accompanying manifesto is also typical of how in Chinese poetry of the last three decades, selfpromotion through manifestoes and group membership has been (as elsewhere) a key strategy for getting published, becoming a focus of discussion, and claiming one’s importance. In China after 1989, when poets such as Bei Dao were forced into exile, this kind of parody could be read as conformist rather than critical in its embrace of commercialism, consumerism, and network culture, and in its rejection of the heroic stance of the poet who resists—in the Garbage School’s interpretation—“oppressive” forces. But whether read as consensual or subversive, the Garbage School poem reflects a commonplace rejection of the mot juste of modernism in favor of rewriting, versioning, and exchange. The Garbage School was just one of a number of iconoclastic poetry movements that emerged in mainland China in the early 2000s. Other such groups included the Lower Body (ᶳ⋲幓) and the Low Poetry Movement (Ỷ娑㫴忳≽). The “patron saint” of these “extreme manifestations” was Yi Sha.56 Yi Sha’s 2002 work Tang Ⓒ perhaps provided the model for the Garbage School’s iconoclastic rewriting of Bei Dao’s poem. In Tang Yi Sha presents irreverent modern vernacular Mandarin versions of Tang poems, including the same Li Bai poem that Som homophonically translates. In his version of “Quiet Night Thoughts,” Yi Sha locates his “original hometown”

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not on the earth but in that faraway world of Tang poetry, as otherworldly as the moon: ㆹ゛ㆹẔ悥㗗Ṷ 征䇯㖶㚰䘬⃱ᷕ 崘徃Ⓒ——崘徃 征᷒㛔⸼⺢䩳⛐ 㚰䎫ᶲ䘬ⷅ⚥ ㆹᷳ⍇ḉ 恋㖶㚰ᷳ⃱ ᶵ孢㗗⸲⇵䘬 ㈹ㆾ㗗䨿⇵䘬 Ṷ㜍悥ᶵ恋ᷰ慵天 ⍵㬋悥⁷⛘ᶲ䘥曄 ㆹẔᷦ⣜⸚ḮṨᷰ ㆹẔỶ⣜⍰⸚ḮṨᷰ57

I think that we all entered the Tang through this piece of bright moonlight—entered that empire that should have been established on the moon my original hometown that bright moonlight whether it’s in front of the bed or in front of the window none of that’s ever been that important since it all looks like white frost on the ground what did we do in lifting our heads and what did we do in lowering our heads

Like Som, Yi Sha makes something new out of repeating an old poem and out of the exchange between two languages, Tang-era Chinese and

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modern Mandarin. Here, however, the differences between the two poems belie the apparent similarities between the two languages, which share a script and many words. These differences show that the notion of a monolithic China, Chinese language, or original home is as fantastic as a kingdom on the moon. The two poems differ not only in lexicon, tone, and style but also in grammar. The typically unstated grammatical subject of Li Bai’s Tang Chinese contrasts with the stated and differentiated subjects “wo” ㆹ (I) and “women” ㆹẔ (we) of modern vernacular Mandarin. Yi Sha retains the contrast between looking up to the moon and looking down to think of home and the frost. However, he uses the contrast to dash the fantasy of the poem and Tang poetry as a homeland against the bitter reality that “it all looks like white frost on the ground.” That is, the imagined beauty and otherworldliness of the Tang turns out to be the prosaic reality of frost. Whether we look up or down, we cannot get to the moon, to the fantasy world of the Tang empire of the moon, or to the poet’s fantastic hometown. We are left, then, only with the prosaic modern poem, whose distance from the world of the Tang is marked by the distance between the classical and modern languages. Home turns out to be a fantasy, and the poem offers not access to a homeland and home tradition but a series of repetitions. The repetitions of the final couplet could be interpreted either as asking “what did we do” in lifting and lowering our heads or as asserting vaguely that “we did something” in performing these actions. The final two lines’ parallelism—the iterative form in which two lines echo each other— emphasizes how the modern Chinese overlays the original. In his modern translation Yi Sha echoes the parallelism of Li Bai’s lifted and lowered head, but this movement produces not a meaningful yearning for home but an indefinite “what” or “something” (shenme Ṩᷰ) that forgoes definite meaning in favor of the rhythms of repetition, parallelism, and versioning. Like Som, Yi Sha locates home not in a place but in a series of translations. In copying and rewriting Three Hundred Tang Poems (Tang shi sanbai shou Ⓒ娑ᶱ䘦椾), Yi Sha extends the Chinese tradition of copying and annotating the classics. He also parodies that tradition through irreverent colloquial rewriting.58 Yi Sha’s parody in turn builds on Chinese modernism’s attacks on the suffocating entrapment of traditional culture. Almost a century earlier, Lu Xun 欗彭 had articulated that entrapment through his own image of a Chinese room: “Imagine an iron house without windows, absolutely indestructible, with many people fast asleep inside who will soon

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die of suffocation. But you know since they will die in their sleep, they will not feel the pain of death. Now if you cry aloud to wake a few of the lighter sleepers, making those unfortunate few suffer the agony of irrevocable death, do you think you are doing them a good turn?”59 Lu Xun’s miniature story takes the form of a philosophical thought experiment posing an ethical dilemma rather than a question about what constitutes consciousness. Nevertheless, like Searle, Lu Xun seeks to contrast mindless rule following with freedom of thought. Searle targets the mindless repetitions of computing, whereas Lu Xun attacks the apathy of a “weak and backward country.” 60 But both give power to their visions through similar metaphors of imprisonment: Searle’s “imagine that you are locked in a room” echoes Lu Xun’s “imagine an iron house without windows.” In the introduction to his collection Call to Arms (Na han ⏞┲), Lu Xun offers the iron house story to explain why, despairing of his country’s apathy, he turned for “some years” to the useless task of “copying ancient inscriptions.” Here, entrapping repetition figures the dangers of a stagnant tradition, as it does in the story that Lu Xun first wrote in an effort to wake the Chinese people from their apathetic slumber, “Diary of a Madman” (“Kuangren riji” 䉪Ṣ㖍姀). In “Diary of a Madman” the protagonist discovers that the entire Chinese tradition comprises only two words endlessly repeated: “eat people.” Routing his criticism through a madman, Lu Xun both tempers his critique and makes it doubly troubling, since the attribution of the discovery to a madman seems to justify the apathy that Lu Xun would claim motivated the story. 61 Instead of seeking, like Lu Xun, to overthrow a suffocating tradition or, like Bei Dao, to find the mot juste that can oppose an oppressive system, writers like Yi Sha and Som seem content to adopt a more light-hearted relation to tradition and nation. On the one hand, Som’s, the Garbage School’s, and Yi Sha’s poetries might seem to revel in a market-based culture in which grand gestures of resistance to tyranny give way to the ability to network, rewrite, and translate oneself. But on the other hand, their subversions of tradition and questioning of nation seem newly apposite when read today in the context of increasingly chauvinist nationalisms, whether in China under Xi Jinping or in the United States under Donald Trump. Like Lu Xun, Yi Sha and Som humorously shift attention away from the search for the essence of a tradition and an imaginary homeland. But for them the copying that Lu Xun claimed was “no use at all” becomes the basis for

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reimagining tradition and home not as stable locations but as continuous acts of translation.62 ANECHOIC CHAMBERS

John Cage was fond of recounting his visit to the anechoic chamber at Harvard University. Afterward, so the story goes, he “asked the engineer . . . why, if the room was so silent, I had heard two sounds.” He was told that the sounds were his “nervous system in operation” and his “blood in circulation.” 63 While the sounds Cage cites are implausible, the larger point remains: in the silence of an anechoic chamber, we hear noises that would otherwise be imperceptible.64 Another strand of iterative Chinese–English translation poetry functions in this way. By diminishing the role of meaning making, these works make perceptible the noise produced by transliteration, translation, and computation. They highlight the processing of information and language that subtends globalization and digital technology. If Yi Sha, Som, and the Garbage School deploy iteration as an alternative to the mindless perpetuation of the iron houses of national tradition and empty transnationalism, Stalling, Hsia Yü, and Tan Lin use the iterative processes of translation and algorithms to reveal the confusion of the individual caught in the echo chamber of global networks and, contrarily, to render perceptible the strange music generated by this mindless machine. In Yingelishi: Sinophonic English Poetry and Poetics (2011), Jonathan Stalling reveals the complexities of a seemingly simple, repetitive, and mechanical process: transliteration. By making poetry out of Chinese–English transliteration, Stalling seems to respond almost directly to Searle’s thought experiment and to the Western philosophical tradition of associating unthinking repetition with Chinese writing and technologies of reproduction. In Yingelishi Stalling appropriates an English phrase book for Chinese speakers. The phrase book uses standard characters for representing English speech. These characters are not meaningless, but their use is conventionalized, and in this context they are meant simply to stand for the English sounds—their meaning in Chinese is considered irrelevant. Stalling reproduces the Chinese and English from the phrase book. But he takes the characters used to represent the English sounds and replaces them with

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other homophones in Chinese and then translates these new Chinese words into English. For example, “English” becomes the title Yingelishi ⏇㫴ᷥ孿, which Stalling translates as “chanted/sung songs, beautiful poetry.” 65 The work appropriates banal everyday language from a phrase book and transforms these phrases in Chinese and English into Chinese homophones that are wildly strange and poetic. Each phrase in Yingelishi appears first in Chinese, then in English translation, then in a Mandarin pinyin transliteration of the English words, then in the same transliteration of the English using idiosyncratic Chinese characters, and finally in an English translation of this strange Chinese transliteration: 実⍇宭ㆹ

please forgive me p‫ گ‬lì sʚ, fó gʏi fú mí 㘖⇑䥩 ἃ亁㴖寄

Vast private profits, Buddha offers impermanent mysteries66

In Yingelishi Stalling engages the questions about repetition and understanding raised by technologies of reproduction. He also addresses the tradition of associating bad repetition with those who do not share one’s culture, language, class, accent, or religion. In using a phrase book—a text designed to help one speak another language without really knowing it— Yingelishi comments on English as a language of global communication and alludes to Hegel’s prejudice, implicit also in Searle’s Chinese room, that to write or speak in Chinese is merely to repeat, not to understand. Yet Stalling presents his work as turning this prejudice on its head. In his introduction to Yingelishi he attacks the racist term “Chinglish” and the way the term equates the failure to conform to an approved accent with a lack of understanding.67 Stalling revalues Chinese-accented English as “beautiful”—as in the “lishi” ᷥ孿 or “beautiful poetry” of the title Yingelishi. Stalling also inverts the relation of linguistic mastery, so that the English-speaking reader is confronted with not understanding the true meaning of apparently English words. Indeed, the “mysteries” of the Chinese text are not even fully unraveled by translation. The translation of “fú”

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㴖 as “impermanent” misses the economic meaning of “inflated,” “surplus,”

or “excessive,” which connects to the business lexicon of the previous line (private profits). Moreover, Stalling chooses to translate these strange poetic phrases as Chinese classical texts, allotting one word to each character. This classical feel—which is so far from modern Chinese that it constitutes another language—is not conveyed in the translations, though it is clear when Stalling performs the poem in the singing style usually reserved for classical Chinese poems. Stalling humorously juxtaposes this strange quasi-classical Chinese with banal phrases of global English and Mandarin taken from a Chinese– English phrase book and, in the first of Yingelishi’s three parts, from his earlier book of poetry Grotto Heaven. Grotto Heaven in turn reworks lesson 72 of the Practical Chinese Reader: A Revised Grammar Book, a text known to millions of students of Mandarin worldwide.68 In Grotto Heaven Stalling connects the global languages of Chinese and English to the universal lessons that modern English-language poetry has derived from traditional Chinese poetics. He does so by transforming the elements of a Chinese lesson on “dictation” into a commentary on foreignness and learning to speak another language: ᶱˤ Dictation 倥⮓ ᶨˤġTo speak the foreign

without deciphering is to lean toward, momentarily, past a return. It is to hear voices in darkness and vanish into the greeting.69

This philosophical meditation on the space of the foreign draws on the Western tradition of using Chinese to signify what Stalling himself has dubbed the “poetics of emptiness.”70 In the prologue to his literary-critical book Poetics of Emptiness, Stalling cites Tony Barnstone’s “The Poem Behind the Poem” on translating Liu Zongyuan 㞛⬿⃫: “Let us take a minute to read it aloud, slowly. Empty our minds. Visualize each word. . . . The poem must be empty, pure perception.”71 As Stalling notes, such commonplace Western representations of classical Chinese poetry ignore many elements of the tradition from form to allusion to social and political context. Nevertheless,

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Stalling argues, these translations function as an important critique of Western philosophy’s disdain for emptiness and nothingness, to which Stalling adds a critique of the dichotomy between repetition and understanding. At the same time, Stalling’s emphasis on the “greeting” offered by “the foreign” also suggests that the poetics of emptiness serves as another form of universal access. Even as he deploys the poetics of emptiness to provincialize Western philosophy, Stalling follows the Western philosophical tradition of appealing to a Chinese example to make a universalizing claim. He presents the poetics of emptiness as a globally accessible empty container into which generalized “foreign . . . voices” might be poured. Although Stalling does not note it, this free-floating poetics of emptiness figures the emptying out of place and location associated with globalization and global modernity. Stalling’s poem rejects meaning (“speak the foreign without deciphering”) in favor of exchange without location (“vanish into the greeting”). In other words, Chinese here functions as a figure for a form of universal access engendered by global languages and new technologies in which meaning is not transfigured but evacuated. Another of the poems in Yingelishi links the poetics of emptiness to contemporary globalization by juxtaposing a quasi-classical Chinese with that quintessential space of global transit, the airport: ㇻ㈘ᶨᶳ ㆹ䘬凒䎕⎟㗗667実斖ㆹ⛐⒒慴⎗ẍ䘣㛢烎 excuse me where should I board flight number 667

Through transliteration into Chinese and back translation into English, this question becomes the following: yí kè sʚ kè yóu sʚ m‫ړ‬, wài’ è xiʷ dé ‘ài bào dé fù lái tè nán bào sè kè sʚ sè kè sʚ sài wén? 忿⭊⿅⭊䓙⿅⻍ ⢾⌬ᾖ⽟䇙㉍⽟ 䇞㜍⽹ 晦㉙䐇 ⭊⿅䐇 ⃳⿅⠆斣

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You leave your guest behind and miss him only to yearn for him all the more enduring hardships outside improves your moral core love pays morals back father comes, now unsure cannot even hold onto the zither how he misses her zither it’s better to stuff one’s ears and stop pining for him altogether 72

Stalling here uses repetition and translation to juxtapose a quasi-classical Chinese with modern English and Mandarin and with that key technology of globalization, the airplane. He stresses the juxtaposition by transforming the flight number into eight characters across three lines: 䐇 / ⭊ ⿅䐇 / ⃳⿅⠆斣. The initial syllable of the word six produces the “se” 䐇, the word for a kind of large ancient Chinese “zither,” whose history dates back over two millennia. The word gives the poem an archaic feel that is reinforced by the strange and hypercondensed “ke si sai wen” ⃳⿅⠆斣. These four characters look like a set phrase or idiom (chengyu ㆸ婆), a common but literary form in modern Chinese deriving from the classical language, in which each character signifies a separate word. The phrase here, however, appears to have been invented by Stalling, reinforcing the sense of archaic or literary obscurity, though with a hint of parody. Stalling extends the juxtaposition of Chinese archaic lexicon and classical syntax with modern globalism by translating the phrase into a colloquial and humorous English that nevertheless retains—in “pining”—a tinge of the literary: “it’s better to stuff one’s ears / and stop pining for him altogether.” Like Som in “Oulipo,” Stalling here connects the themes of longing (“pining,” “miss him,” and “yearn for him”) and separation (“you leave . . . behind”) in the millennia-old Chinese literary tradition to the modern experience of displacement for the global traveler or migrant. He fuses the poetics of emptiness and Chinese exoticism with empty globalism.73 Stalling’s poem thereby invokes the West’s “contemporary mythos— wherein the aesthetics of the East offer a means of transcending (and eventually becoming) the machine.”74 He updates for the twenty-first century Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro,” which also linked the anonymity of  modern transportation technology to traditional East Asian poetics.75

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Stalling replaces Pound’s metro with the globalized anonymity of the airport, connecting the rule following of transliteration to the strict controls— such as passport checks—that are the price of the traveler’s “passive joys of identity-loss,” “solitude, and similitude” in the globalized “non-place” of the airport.76 Yingelishi tells the story of one such anonymous traveler, the implied user of the lines from the English phrase book, who, after disembarking from flight 667, passes through customs and passport control and enters an English-speaking country, perhaps Stalling’s homeland, the United States of America. Stalling connects these basic phrases of global English to the style of English translation of Chinese poetry first established by Pound. Stalling familiarizes his strange Chinese transliterations into the imagist style that has become “the identity of Chinese poetry in English today.” This style favors present tense, generalized scenes, rhythms that “consolidate into a few strong beats, verbal parallelism,” and bare syntax.77 By deploying this style, Stalling produces the poetic equivalent of an international airport: a traveling poetry of global Mandarin, global English, strange quasi-classical Chinese, and the generalized style of English translations of Chinese poetry that, like a phrase book, treats meaning as something as easily transportable as a passenger on an airplane. Yet Stalling also emphasizes the failure of communication and the terrifying aspect of the loss of identity in global travel. At the end of Stalling’s book, the speaker is robbed of his or her passport and other belongings and must attempt to communicate these difficulties in a police station, using very limited English. The final basic English phrases are “I am a foreigner, I don’t know English”; “do you speak Chinese”; “can you speak slowly”; “please say it again.”78 Here Stalling emphasizes the dark side of global travel and, by implication, the placeless, anonymous global poem. In Stalling’s work the failure to communicate meaning also leads to a heightened attention to sound and repetition. The final “say it again” describes not only the speaker’s desperate attempt to understand but also Stalling’s iterative poetic method of transliteration and translation. Whereas Som calls his poem a “pseudo song,” Stalling makes the “zither” (sè 䐇) a synecdoche for the music that emerges through his visual and sonic repetitions and variations across Chinese and English. The word sè 䐇 is itself repeated in the punning Chinese transliterations of the word “six.” Stalling underscores these sound repetitions through the rhymes “more,” “core,”

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and “unsure.” These comic rhymes signal a possible parody and so make the poem’s uncertain meaning echo its nonspecific location. Put another way, whereas the interpretative uncertainty generated by Pound’s juxtaposition of “faces” with “petals” serves to emphasize a singular moment in a metro station, Stalling juxtaposes phrases to emphasize the noise generated by the process of transliterating and translating a text. Pound seeks to make his poem a correlative of a particular place in a singular “instant of time” via an appeal to East Asian aesthetics and photographic and transport technology.79 Stalling alludes to the Chinese poetic tradition, computer technology, and the transit space of the airport to make a poetic correlative of the geographically dispersed and infinitely repeatable processes of global exchange and digital encoding. Alongside his poetic and scholarly work, Stalling has extended the possibilities of Chinese writing as a means of universally transcribing and encoding all languages through his patented app and phonemic system Pinying ㊤劙, whose name echoes the People’s Republic of China’s official system for transliterating Chinese into the Latin alphabet, pinyin ㊤枛, but replaces the second syllable with the Chinese word for English, ying 劙. Pinying represents sounds in English using parts of Chinese characters. Whereas Chinese characters conventionally represent a whole syllable, Stalling’s system cuts those characters into parts that are each assigned a phonemic value. In his app Stalling uses two faces of a rotating cube graphic to display letters in English words and the corresponding parts of Chinese characters that a Mandarin speaker can sound out to pronounce those words (figure  6.3). In this way, Pinying transforms Chinese characters from a syllabic semilogographic, semi-ideographic writing system into a phonemic system that can be reassembled to reproduce any word in English or, with some augmentation, any other spoken language. The app’s graphic representation of Chinese words as cubes cut into top and bottom sections and reassembled echoes the splitting approach taken by Lin Yutang 㜿婆➪, whose Chinese typewriter, patented in the United States in 1946, “took ninety thousand characters and divided them into simple top and bottom components, each of which was assigned to one of the seventy-two keys.”80 Just as “Lin discovered a way to mechanize the writing of Chinese, moving the language onto a platform on which alphabetic technology had reigned supreme,” Stalling’s app deploys a similar

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FIGURE 6.3. Promotional image showing the Pinying app interface. Photo courtesy of Jonathan Stalling.

character-splitting strategy to allow Chinese writing to function as well as alphabetic technology in the transcription of phonemic data.81 Stalling develops a system with universalist ambitions not by favoring one language but by emphasizing the intersections between different phonemic systems and scripts, thereby increasing their accessibility. Similarly, Lin promoted an expansive vision of the Chinese language that would include what he called “Pidgin English” (transliterations and other borrowings from English), and his Chinese typewriter incorporated alphabetic principles into the mechanical input for characters, so producing a more accommodating language of universal access.82 Like Lin’s Pidgin-English Chinese, Stalling’s Yingelishi is full of Chinese text produced from English transliterations. Lin praised such examples as the Chinese word for “sliced bread,” tusi ⎸⎠, which derives from the English word “toast.”83 Stalling extends Lin’s enthusiasm for the linguistic richness of transliteration by replacing stock characters used for transliteration with strange concatenations full of meaning. Like Lin, Stalling presents the relationship between English and Chinese as a competition not so much for universality as for maximal translatability. Stalling thereby both echoes and transforms the Western tradition of

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producing universal claims through an appeal to the alleged radical otherness of Chinese. Contemporaries of Lin such as I. A. Richards and Warren Weaver followed the Western tradition of appealing to Chinese to lay claim to a universal system of meaning. Lin proposed Pidgin English partly as an alternative to Basic English, which Richards worked to propagate in China and whose project of producing universally comprehensible meanings out of a limited English vocabulary was championed by Pound, notwithstanding the latter’s penchant for multilingualism.84 Weaver sought to develop a global language of computer code, which, partly through the influence of Richards, he imagined as a form of English, whose universality was guaranteed by its ability to encode all languages.85 “It is very tempting,” Weaver wrote, “to say that a book written in Chinese is simply a book written in English which was coded into the ‘Chinese code.’ ”86 Here, then, global English stands as a proxy for the universal language of code for which Chinese is the limit case—again fulfilling its traditional role in the Western imagination as the horizon of the universal. By contrast, Stalling locates meaning not in one language but in the interplay between the two languages, which he emphasizes in Yingelishi through interlingual puns and the juxtaposition of the two scripts. Whereas Pound drew on other scripts, including Chinese, the better to fix a complex interplay of meanings, Stalling questions such modernist universalism. Rather than seeking to create a single fixed meaning, he proliferates multiple meanings through Chinese–English puns, whose semantic noise matches their phonemic polyphony. He thereby emphasizes the “cultural hospitality and linguistic accommodation” that also characterize the relationship between global Chinese and global English.87 In his Pinying app Stalling visualizes this linguistic hospitality and exchange through the graphic interface of rotating cubes, whose faces accommodate both Chinese and English words. This use of cubes recalls his earlier collaboration with Amy Stalling on an artwork and literary project that utilized literal wooden cubes hung in chains and then photographed for publication (figure 6.4). On one face, Stalling wrote the characters of a poem in Chinese, on the next the pinyin representation of the characters, on the third an English translation of the characters, and on the fourth a Chinese transliteration of the English words. Stalling’s representation of Chinese and English words as block units alludes to the block units of Chinese print as well as to the “ideographic”

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FIGURES 6.4A, 6.4B. From Li, Stalling, and Stalling, “Five Variations on a Poem,” 103, 105. Courtesy of Amy and Jonathan Stalling. Photos by Jonathan Stalling.

nature of the alphanumeric “statistical system” of digital language.88 Drawing on his collaborator Weaver’s imagining of English as the universal language of code, Claude Shannon developed his influential statistical account of information and communication by recognizing that words represented by an alphabet could be statistically reconceived as units of information. English words became more like Chinese characters via “the ideographic utopia of mathematical symbols,” even as in input systems like Lin’s, “the alphabet was reabsorbed into Chinese as an invisible component of the ideograph.”89 Together the ideographic reconception of alphabetic words and the absorption of the alphabet into the ideograph exemplify how global English and global Chinese each try “to play host to the other in an

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escalation of universal access.”90 Stalling emphasizes this accommodation between alphabet and ideograph in Yingelishi, in which the character substitutions allude to Chinese computer input methods, such as pinyin, that utilize alphabetic encodings of Chinese characters. Computer input methods, encoded language, and the global competition between Chinese and English might muffle the particularity of a moment, location, or tradition and so lead to an empty globalism. But as Stalling’s poetry suggests, the resulting silence can also amplify new poetic noises of accommodation and exchange between languages. AUTOMATIC ESTRANGEMENT

Poets from the Chinese-speaking world have also explored the interplay between the alphabetic and ideographic aspects of digitally encoded language. Taiwanese poet Chen Li 昛湶, for instance, makes poetry from the miscues made possible by Chinese computer input methods in “A Love Poem I Mistyped Because I Was Sleepy” (“Yi shou yin aikun zai shuru shi an cuo jian de qingshi” ᶨ椾⚈ッ䛷⛐廠ℍ㗪㊱拗挝䘬ね娑). Another Taiwanese poet, Hsia Yü, has gone even further in exploring the computer processing of language, while, like Stalling, emphasizing exchange between Chinese and English. Whereas Stalling makes music out of the striving for universal access—as hospitality and rivalry—in machine translation and global networks, Hsia Yü sculpts her poetry from the distortions that impede the lossless communication of signals through digital networks and machines. In Pink Noise 䰱䲭刚☒枛 she emphasizes how projections of universal connectedness and comprehension lead to jarring, humorous semantic juxtapositions, confusion, and strangeness. Hsia Yü created Pink Noise through web cut and paste and machine translation. The work began with short texts in English (and one in French) that Hsia Yü compiled from online sources. These texts range from spam, blogs, and quizzes to quotations from Karl Marx and Kurt Cobain.91 Hsia Yü then transformed these texts into strange Chinese using the now defunct Mac OSX translation program Sherlock, sometimes translating the texts back and forth between English and Chinese several times before achieving the desired effect.92 The physical form of Pink Noise materializes Hsia Yü’s mélange of languages, the Internet, and the mindless algorithmic processes of machine

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translation. The book is made of bound cellulose acetate sheets, the material used in analogue film and in overhead transparencies. Hsia Yü thereby alludes to the transformation of poetry with the rise of new media. Older media—such as analogue cinema and print—give way to the new screen technologies of digital media through which Hsia Yü’s text was created. Even as she nostalgically deploys materials seemingly outmoded by digital media, Hsia Yü uses the printed transparencies to materialize “the fleeting, spectral presence of signs on a computer screen.”93 She prints the original English and French texts left-aligned in black and the Chinese machine translations right-aligned and in pink. The result is a book in which media, texts, languages, and scripts bleed into each other and into illegibility (figure 6.5). The blurring, overlaid layers of media, words, and languages mimic the multiple media, linkages, and confusion of the Internet and the distortions and chance intersections of machine translation. Hsia Yü connects the strangeness of the Internet to the strangeness of her machine translations, especially the humorously literal and nonsensical translations of idiomatic phrases, such as “Bad to the bone but fine as

FIGURE 6.5. Hsia Yü, Pink Noise. Photo courtesy of vivienjames.

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wine,” which becomes “for the bone harmful but beautiful treated as wine” (⢆⮵橐柕Ữ伶⤥ἄ䁢惺).94 As in this example, the translation program often fails to heed the syntactic norms of Chinese, so that English word order is retained in the Chinese with very strange results. Words such as “fuck” are repeatedly translated as “sexual intercourse” (⿏Ṍ), so that “How fucking creepy is that?” becomes “How is sex wriggly?” (⾶㧋⿏Ṍ㗗垽≽恋?).95 The weirdness of these lines in turn echoes the bizarreness of the English phrases that Hsia Yü mines from the Internet, such as “There’s nothing wrong with having sex with a can.”96 Hsia Yü frequently selects English texts that exemplify and mix consumer and sexual desire: “indulge yourself with a brand-new bag for fall”; “Yes, please send me a biweekly / Newsletter filled with diets”; “This summer / Daily indulgence: / Easy treats, delightful ideas / Did you bring protection?”; “Seduced by flowers / She’s not afraid to be bold when / It comes to decorating”; “We registered for it for my wedding / And I got it / Right now it’s in the foyer when you walk in.”97 Such texts link the desire to “indulge yourself” in products to the “indulgence” of sexual desire (where “flowers” seduce and are linked to “decorating”) and romantic love (“we registered it for my wedding”). But she also connects consumer and sexual desire to the poet’s own consumption of such texts. In the interview about the project that concludes Pink Noise, Hsia Yü comments, “You know, I’ve never really cared that much for computers or the Net. . . . But now I feel a new romance coming on with this automated translation software, my machine poet. And what really turns me on is that, like any lethal lover, it announces from the very beginning that it is not to be trusted.”98 Hsia Yü chooses texts about consumer and sexual desire to feed her own “new romance” with Sherlock, the program that in turn consumes and transforms her appropriated words. Hsia Yü thus highlights how texts on the Internet become objects of desire and exchange—things to consume, copy, and transform. In part 22 she further suggests ways in which such desires might be untrustworthy and “lethal.” She links this freeing of the text from its author to Marx’s analysis of the alienation of workers from the things they make. She takes the title of one section from Das Kapital: “We erect our structure in the imagination before we erect it in reality.”99 The quotation comes from a passage where Marx distinguishes between animal and human labor before, later in the same section, describing how capitalism distorts the

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mindfulness of human creation: “The capitalist incorporates labor, as a living ferment, with the lifeless constituents of the product, which belong to him as well.”100 Hsia Yü seems to treat language in an analogous way, removing texts from their authors and turning them into commodities. She consumes these texts and transforms them, through the “lifeless” and unthinking processes of machine translation, into the “product” Pink Noise, which belongs to her. Hsia Yü alienates Marx’s own words even as she applies them. The quotation from Marx appears at the double remove of a copied English translation that departs significantly from the German.101 Marx in fact wrote, “Was aber von vornherein den schlechtesten Baumeister vor der besten Biene auszeichnet, ist, daß er die Zelle in seinem Kopf gebaut hat, bevor er sie in Wachs baut” (But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is that the architect builds the cell in his head before he constructs it in wax).102 Hsia Yü’s appropriated English translation paraphrases and abstracts this original text. The honeycomb “cell” (“Zelle,” which refers back to “Wachszellen,” or “wax cells,” in the previous sentence) becomes the abstract “structure,” “wax” (“Wachs”) becomes “reality,” and “in his head” (“in seinem Kopf”) becomes “in the imagination.” These abstractions parallel the process about which Marx writes: labor is abstracted to the point where it ceases to express an individual’s thoughts and becomes instead a lifeless piece of property. Meaningful labor gives way to meaningless repetition. Pink Noise seems to capitulate to the very meaningless repetitions that modernist writing sought to combat. Quoting Leo Tolstoy, Viktor Shklovsky claimed that art should estrange and renew our perception of the world, so overcoming the unthinking repetitions through which most people live their lives: “If the complex life of many people takes place entirely on the level of the unconscious, it’s as if that life had never been.”103 Or as the opening page of Pink Noise announces, “real life is happening somewhere else.”104 Through this phrase copied from the Internet, Hsia Yü associates such failures of perception with digital cut and paste, the seductive virtual life of the web, and machine translations that are not simply unconscious but lack, as Searle would have it, the prerequisites for cognition. Yet even as she accentuates the computer’s mindless repetitions, Hsia Yü produces estranging texts. Although she claims that “Chinese can be

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written in the syntactical order of any language—English, French, Japanese, whatever—and you can still read it and feel it makes sense,” the machine translations distort Chinese syntax to the point of rendering it incomprehensible.105 The quotation from Marx becomes “ㆹᾹ㝞姕ㆹᾹ䘬 䳸㥳⛐゛⁷≃⛐ㆹᾹ㝞姕⬫⮎晃ᶲᷳ⇵.”106 Such strange Chinese makes translation back into English difficult. This syntactically confusing phrase might be rendered as “the composition in which we construct us is in the imagination is in before its reality we construct.” As one reader and professional translator comments, “Her machine translations . . . are, for the most part, as semantically opaque as they are materially transparent.”107 Perhaps, as he suggests, the only proper way to translate them back into English is via a machine translator, such as Google Translate. Through machine translation, Hsia Yü fuses modernist estrangement with processes that valorize accessibility, exchange, and malleability. At the beginning of the twentieth century the new printing technology of the lithograph brought an explosion in cut-and-paste production and a corresponding modernist reaction that sought to complicate the easy transfer of text and image from one place or page to another.108 In the first decade of the twenty-first century Hsia Yü fuses these contrary impulses through the now vast, instantaneous, and global textual possibilities of digital copying. Whereas modernists emphasized the materiality of the object or word—the “stone” made “stony”—Hsia Yü rejects such “autonomous word art.”109 She favors the cut-and-paste processes of the reproduction media that modernists sought to combat or détourne. Yet out of unthinking copying and algorithms, Hsia Yü generates Shklovsky’s estranging “device of art.” Her machine translations make the reader labor for meaning. Just as Shklovsky prescribed, they render “perception long and ‘laborious.’ ”110 She thereby makes perceptible the forms of repetition—proliferating cut and paste and automatic computer processing—through which we increasingly live our lives. Hsia Yü’s iterative poetry of translation—what she terms “fanyi shi” 侣嬗娑 (translation poetry)—makes us hear the noise that sounds in the algorithmic processing of encoded language and in the proliferating texts of the Internet. She makes audible the unconscious life of the Internet not as a random white noise but as a pink noise—a mathematical form discernible in natural phenomena, such as the tides, in which variable signals nevertheless contain perceptible cycles of repetition.111

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Hsia Yü’s use of what might be termed automatic estrangement continues a preoccupation with the machine in avant-garde art and literature. The machine has long figured as a source of both “incessant persistence and inevitable diversions,” in work ranging from the automatic writing of the surrealists and the “production automatique de littérature française” (automatic production of French literature) of the Oulipo writers Georges Perec and Marcel Bénabou to the conceptual art of Sol LeWitt.112 Like these writers and artists, Hsia Yü uses the apparent “mindless repetition” of the machine to generate strange, divergent effects. However, Hsia Yü applies these “two aspects of the machine—its ineluctable, relentless repetition and its propensity toward inevitable error and erratic failure”—to the networked world and to the twenty-first-century relationship between global Chinese and global English.113 She adapts the generative potential literature of Oulipo and the conceptual artist’s view of the idea as “a machine that makes the art” to the demands of accessibility and exchange in the global digital economy.114 In fusing modernist estrangement with processes of exchange, Hsia Yü’s Pink Noise participates in the network economy—in which a successful text must “allow itself to be appropriated” and repeated so that it can serve as “a malleable source of linking value”—and in a linguistic economy in which global Chinese and English compete for the greatest accessibility.115 Hence Hsia Yü insists on “the malleability of the Chinese language” even under the extreme distortions of machine translation.116 The strange Chinese texts might seem to undermine this insistence, their semantic opacity contradicting “the physical transparency of the book.”117 Yet in another sense, Hsia Yü’s Pink Noise illustrates the perfect compatibility of modernist difficulty and semantic transparency, linguistic singularity and easy translatability, in a world of digital networks. Hsia Yü assumes a primary audience of educated Chinese readers who know English as well as Chinese, but its bilingual text also opens it partly to English speakers who do not know Chinese and to Chinese speakers who know no English. The latter can now easily input the English into an online translation machine and so appropriate and extend Hsia Yü’s text and writing strategy. And while the difficulty of inputting Chinese characters still presents a partial barrier for English speakers, text recognition software means that they too can at least potentially participate in the same linking game that Hsia Yü initiates,

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rendering the text yet more malleable and appropriated through their further translations. Just as Hsia Yü undermines the opposition between modernist difficulty and networked accessibility, so the alienation of the text from its author not only presents an extension of the alienation of labor in the network economy but also enables new forms of imaginative labor: readers participate in and extend Hsia Yü’s text through their own web searches and machine translations, generating further opportunities for linkage and exchange. In combining the repetitions of technology and translation, Hsia Yü, like the other poets discussed in this chapter, elaborates a program for universal access: an attempt to make a virtue of how repetition produces texts out of other texts and multiplies their linkages and accessibility. Yet each of these poets also highlights and, to varying degrees, meditates on the problem of a global literature, one in which the dangers of vacuity and exoticism are ever present—from Som’s “pseudo songs” and “wontons” to Stalling’s conflation of airports and Buddhist emptiness to Hsia Yü’s romance with machine failure and web detritus to Yi Sha’s loving, mocking translations of the Tang poets. Collectively, they use forms of repetition to engage the authority of global Chinese and English, of the digital technologies that today drive their propagation, and of the two associated superpowers of our present moment. While these poets might seem to extend the dystopic logic of US conceptual writers such as Vanessa Place, their emphasis on translation suggests an alternative future for iterative poetics that draws on its liberating as well as entrapping histories. Take, as a final example, Tan Lin, a US poet who would at first glance seem to have close affinities with Goldsmith. Like Goldsmith and Hsia Yü, Tan Lin deploys web harvesting and digital processing in his Seven Controlled Vocabularies and Obituary 2004: The Joy of Cooking. Like No. 111 2.7.93–10.20.96 and Pink Noise, Seven Controlled Vocabularies is a book made from other texts: a compilation of restaurant reviews; documentary photographs; packaging for matches; metadata lists; the index of Roland Barthes’s Image, Music, Text; the foreword to Laura Riding Jackson’s Rational Meaning; and so on. Despite this eclecticism, Tan Lin insists that “it was always a Chinese book for me.”118 Tan Lin includes various bits of Chinese produced via Google Translate, mentions of Chinatown, a digital scan of a scrap of paper with “Speak Chinese tea 勞 chá”

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written on it, and so forth.119 He and a group of collaborators later produced several Chinese versions using Google Translate and a reverse translation back into English.120 Just as Hsia Yü’s Pink Noise mixes Chinese with English to make perceptible the strangeness of our networked world, Tan Lin interpolates English with Chinese to highlight what he calls the “general operating system or generic culture of software whose purpose is to continually redistribute a range of materials across a single platform.”121 He presents the book as arising out of his encounter with a universal system for naming art objects designed at the Getty: a “metadata controlled vocabulary system for describing museum objects across institutional platforms and across languages.”122 For Tan Lin, “Chinese” is one such metadata term: it is one of the Library of Congress classification subject headings for his book (“China—poetry”) and an index term in the cookbook Joy of Cooking. “For my family in the late 50s, imagine this: the noun ‘Chinese’ is followed by only seven adjectives: celery, chestnuts, dressing, egg rolls, meatballs, rice (fried), and sauce (sweet-sour).”123 On the one hand, Tan Lin here points to the restrictive classifications applied to the term Chinese in the United States.124 He alludes in particular to the racist response to the selection of his sister Maya Lin’s design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC. Among other racist vitriol, the response included presidential candidate Ross Perot calling her an “eggroll”—a culinary invention that, ironically, has its origins not in China but in the United States.125 On the other hand, Tan Lin associates Chinese with classification, metadata, and other forms of textual processing. Chinese thus comes to stand for technologies of textual reproduction, as in his appropriation of a footnote from Lydia Liu on the invention of movable type in China and the “conspiracy of silence” involved in attributing its invention to Johannes Gutenberg.126 Tan Lin emphasizes the Chinese language’s global status by associating it with systems of reproduction (such as movable type), metadata, and machine translation, all innovations that promote universal accessibility. But because Tan Lin emphasizes that he is Chinese or Chinese American, “Chinese” also stands for autobiography, linking his work to body, place, and location. In his expanded preface to the book, for instance, he cites his time “at 98 Bowery in Chinatown, in New York City,” in 2001 as the starting point for the book and claims that “the book is kind of about growing up Chinese in Ohio.”127 In other words, “Chinese” also stands for

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the radical particulars of personal history that abstracted metadata and networked textuality might seem to obscure, even as the term itself obscures further personal particularities of class and background, such as the differences between Som, whose grandfather was a paper-son immigrant, and Tan Lin, whose father and mother were both privileged and highly educated Chinese immigrants who became, respectively, professors of fine arts and of Chinese and English literature. Tan Lin in fact unites both uses of “Chinese”: as a figure for digital processing and as personal history. He both situates personal identity within abstract cultural categories and materializes the abstraction of computer processes and global networks as an encounter, at once personal and geopolitical, between the global linguistic others of Chinese and English. Like the other poets discussed in this chapter, Tan Lin uses repetition to explore a new model for the relationship between person and machine in an era of digital technology and globalization. The imagining of computer processing and digital networks via another language extends a long tradition of associating new inscription, information, and communication technologies with the strange novelties or meaningless repetitions of the foreign. But even as they continue this tradition, the poets whom I have discussed here also exemplify a change from earlier avant-garde practices—a shift from the mot juste and radical particulars of “disjunct ‘bits’ of language” to the iterative poetics of textual processing and networking. They turn to another language—to Chinese or to English—not to make something new, but to reveal something strangely the same.

RECAPITULATIONS Repetition and Revolution in World Poetry

On March 26, 2011, tens of thousands of Londoners took to the streets to oppose government cuts in public spending and to voice their outrage at the bankrolling of wealthy elites in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Some protesters turned their anger on prominent businesses, such as Topshop, HSBC, and the Royal Bank of Scotland, breaking shop front windows and clashing with police.1 The next day, Sean Bonney celebrated the protesters’ efforts to “smash the Ritz” hotel in a poem entitled “Communique—(After Rimbaud).”2 Around this time, the poetry of Arthur Rimbaud appeared in a series of English versions by another prominent avant-garde poet, Canadian Christian Bök. Bök and Bonney are almost exact contemporaries. Born in 1966 and 1969 respectively, they belong to the generation of poets who came to maturity during the late 1980s and early 1990s, the period that brought a new wave of globalization, the spread of the World Wide Web, and the rise of the poetics of repetition. Published within a couple of years of one another, Bök’s and Bonney’s versions of Rimbaud illustrate the copy strategies that had over the previous two decades become commonplace. Their purposes, methods, and resulting texts are, however, worlds apart. Bök demonstrates his linguistic virtuosity in his “Five Translations of Arthur Rimbaud’s ‘Voyelles.’ ”3 He included the translations in a revised edition of his best-known work, Eunoia, which uses a different single vowel

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in each of its five chapters.4 In Eunoia Bök deploys the lipogram constraint popularized by Georges Perec’s novel La Disparition (1969) and by other Oulipo writings. Bök also takes inspiration from Rimbaud’s sonnet itself, whose associations between vowel and color are literalized on the multicolor cover of the revised edition of Eunoia. Bök’s translations of Rimbaud extend his book’s emphasis on writing under constraint. Each of Bök’s five translations is written according to a different set of rules. The first preserves “the rhyme scheme of the original, while enforcing the rigorous, syllabic contours of the alexandrine line.” The second is a homophonic translation, and the third a “homovocalic” translation, in which Bök uses exactly the same vowels in the same order as the French original but changes all the other letters. The fourth is an English anagram of Rimbaud’s French text, and the fifth is simply all the vowels of the original with all other letters removed.5 Bök exemplifies the connection between iterative practices—such as algorithm, constraint, and translation—and new technologies and media. He used painstakingly compiled word inventories to write Eunoia, and he has elsewhere experimented with genetically encoded poetry. He has claimed that “technologies of information-processing are going to become the medium for all forms of cultural expression” and that artists therefore should participate in fields such as genetic and computer engineering.6 In poems such as Eunoia and his Rimbaud translations, Bök takes up this challenge, producing virtuosic technical solutions to poetic problems that both celebrate and render absurd the techno-scientific world. By contrast, Bonney makes repetition a tool for contesting political authority. Whereas Bök’s versions of Rimbaud’s “Voyelles” (“Vowels”) focus on sounds and graphemes, Bonney is more interested in how Rimbaud’s disruption of grammatical and linguistic certainties relates to an explosion of political, social, and economic structures. For Bonney, Rimbaud’s “ ‘systematic derangement of the senses’ is the social senses.”7 Bonney’s versions appear in Happiness: Poems After Rimbaud and form part of the rewriting project that also includes his Baudelaire in English. In Happiness Bonney rewrites Rimbaud to tell the story of the protests against the existing economic and political order that took place in London in 2010 and 2011 in the wake of the global financial crisis. Much of Happiness first appeared on Bonney’s Abandonedbuildings blog, so the book functions as a retrospective archiving and framing of poems written as news, as part of and in response to a movement for revolutionary change.

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Yet for all their immediacy, Bonney’s poems are reiterations: they come “after Rimbaud” and echo the revolutionary moment of his poetry. Happiness begins with an epigraph from the preface to Prosper-Olivier Lissagaray’s History of the Paris Commune of 1871: “They who tell the people revolutionary legends, they who amuse themselves with sentimental stories, are as criminal as the geographer who would draw up false charts for navigators.”8 The problem is how to retell revolutionary history without transforming it into mere fodder for the culture industry, like the commodified revolutionary chic of those endlessly reproduced Che Guevara T-shirts or Lenin and Mao icons. As Bonney’s Baudelaire in English concludes, “The poem is in danger of becoming an overly smooth surface fit only for the lobbies of office buildings and as illustrations / expensive gallery catalogues, that kinda bullshit.”9 Bonney stresses and redoubles this problem by echoing past texts—like Rimbaud’s and Lissagaray’s—and events like the 1871 Paris Commune. Lissagaray’s statement opens the entire collection, but Bonney repeats it in the final part of a poem that fuses Rimbaud’s “Vowels” with a description of repetition as a prison: “We invented colours for the vowels, rich people live there: a mobile holding cell where reality would go on reproducing and representing itself endlessly where we could not exist, a systematic & carefully charted series of political assassinations.”10 For Bonney, Rimbaud’s revolutionary poetics has become like those lobbies and catalogues: a place for “rich people” to live. Though Bonney explores how echoing Rimbaud might be revolutionary, he also cautions that what look like revolutionary “political assassinations” could in fact be “false charts”: a “charted series” of repetitions that assassinate the political—as Bonney might read Bök’s formalism. Bonney’s “cell where reality would go on reproducing and representing itself endlessly” echoes Fredric Jameson’s much earlier attack on formalism and structuralism for their obsession with language and their supposed failure to address history.11 For both Bonney and Jameson, what makes language a prison is its treatment as a closed system of endless repetition. Jameson’s Prison-House of Language appeared in 1972, the same year as the essay “Signature événement contexte” (“Signature Event Context”), in which Jacques Derrida introduced the concept of iterability.12 Through this concept, Derrida reveals an opening in this so-called prison house. Derrida emphasizes how a text shifts its meaning with each new reading or

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writing, so recognizing the place of history in the allegedly closed system of language. Make It the Same has shown that we need to allow history back into our reading of writings such as Jameson’s and Derrida’s—that the dichotomies between Jameson and Derrida, Bonney and Bök, politics and poetics, history and language, and a text and its medium are false. The notion of iterability was not original to Derrida but reflected and has subsequently seeped into many ways of understanding not only language but gender, sexuality, identity, and culture at large. Its pervasiveness reflects not the brilliance of the argument but its historical coincidence with the rise of copy culture. Like the poets studied in this book, Derrida turns to repetition to respond to new information and communication technologies. His essay on iterability started life as a talk to a 1971 conference on communication and reflects the larger entwinement of poststructuralist thought with media theory.13 Seen in this light, both Jameson’s and Derrida’s arguments explore not just the formal consequences of their views of language but the historical consequences of a world of proliferating media. Their opposed arguments are part of a much larger response to anxiety about the elision of difference wrought by the repetitions of globalization, science, and technology. Published just a few years earlier, Gilles Deleuze’s Différence et répétition (1968) also sought to highlight “the play of the individual and individuation” obscured by the “illusion” of sameness and repetition in everything from scientific repeatability and biological taxonomy to psychological habit.14 We see a similar anxiety about repetition in otherwise very different attempts to defend the singularity of literature today.15 As this book has shown, however, there is another way to respond to the proliferating copies of the contemporary world. Instead of trying to rescue difference from repetition, we might, like the poets studied here, embrace copying and reiteration and acknowledge the intertwinement of singularity with system, difference with repetition, history with form. Literary studies and the humanities at large need to address systematic repetitions as well as singular differences. Only in this way can we recognize, for instance, how the iterative form that underlies the various poetries studied in this book reflects and shapes the larger changes in media, economics, and geopolitics associated with globalization. History includes form, but form also includes history.

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Form and history, media and politics, intersect in poetry’s turn to repetition. This turn has no one point of origin but describes a shared formal tendency among diverse responses to new media technology and to cultural and political authorities, from the British and Soviet empires to today’s global superpowers, China and the United States. Such a formalist reading of literary change is political in two senses. First, it offers a corrective to accounts that privilege Anglo-European contexts. Second, it presents literary change as inculcated in unequal cultural and political power relations and in changing information and communication technologies—from the radio and tape recorder to the Internet. Though the iterative turn represents a common response to new media and globalization, these forces have not impacted everywhere and everyone at the same time and in the same way. The turn to repetition via samizdat, for instance, would have been inconceivable outside a system that controlled other forms of print reproduction but in which typewriters and carbon paper were readily available. But such changes did not happen in isolation. The art of samizdat was from the beginning in dialogue with the West, including Western conceptual art. A similar intersection of media and transnationalism can be seen in writers such as Frantz Fanon and Kamau Brathwaite, who made radio both a tool and a model for global anticolonialism. Tape recording also helped constitute and document the international networks of the Caribbean Artists Movement. And both of these media provided new ways of thinking about culture and nation. We cannot, however, understand these recurring turns to repetition purely through technology. Media themselves are not just technologies but cultural practices, and the rise of copying is not simply a consequence of new technologies but an engagement in battles over cultural and political authority precipitated by globalization. For Brathwaite, writing from the perspective of a barely postcolonial Caribbean, the “world” or the “international” looked suspiciously like a reassertion of European colonial power.16 It looks the same today from many vantage points on the planet, as Caroline Bergvall underscores through her reiteration of migrant voices imperiled by guarded borders and global English. Globalization, however, also manifests positively in Bergvall’s multilingualism and in Brathwaite’s and the Caribbean Artists Movement’s search for alternative networks of transnational affiliation, such as Pan-Africanism, to counterbalance the

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unequal power dynamic between London and its former Caribbean colonies. For Brathwaite globalization represented two competing models of repetition, which he would later name dialectic and “tidalectic.” More important than the dichotomy was the continuity: the problem of cultural domination— enforced repetition—could only be countered by more repetition. Repetition’s poetic and historical role in both reinforcing and resisting authority derives from its essential duality: it is by definition the same, yet it is never quite the same. Brathwaite identified the duality of iterative form through his study of creolization in Jamaican slave society, through his experiments with new media, and through his engagement with European, Caribbean, and African traditions. “It was in language that the slave was perhaps most successfully imprisoned by his master,” writes Brathwaite, “and it was in his (mis-)use of it that he perhaps most effectively rebelled.”17 Though he refers to Jamaican slaves of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Brathwaite also suggests the dilemma for postcolonial writers seeking to free their minds from European colonialism while writing in the language and tradition of Europe and with the tools of new global media. His aphorism further equates the solution to that dilemma with the formal qualities of repetition: its ability to make things simultaneously the same and strange. Like other iterative poets, Brathwaite connects repetition to capitulation, but he also rhymes it with liberation. Brathwaite describes the English language as a “prison” and the computer as a dangerous neocolonial Prospero.18 Similarly, Joan Retallack envisages the mindless repetitions of the translation machine as a cell whose confines resemble the cultural repetitions that have imprisoned women in a patriarchal society. Retallack’s poem concludes, however, with a series of words that the reader is free to rearrange. Brathwaite likewise celebrates Caliban’s misuse of the new digital machines—and the possibility that Prospero might “get curse / wid im own // curser”—just as he champions slaves’ “(mis-)use” of their masters’ language two centuries earlier.19 While recapitulation in one now obsolete sense means to lose again, it also suggests the mastery of an orator’s or composer’s revisitation of a theme. Such a conclusion might suggest the closure and perhaps enclosure of an argument that has run its course. But it might also offer the liberating idea

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that the same stories could be told again in myriad new ways. This book has told several stories about the role of the copy in poetry, media, and cultural and political authority. These stories interweave, threading together form, media, and geopolitics, as well as diverse strands of contemporary poetry from Toronto to Kingston, London to Taipei. One story traces the use of iteration to signify both liberation from and capitulation to authority. Dmitri Prigov produced absurd samizdat texts filled with Soviet slogans or famous lines from Alexander Pushkin. Repetition here signals the maintenance of authority and its alteration. Likewise, Prigov’s Stone and Circles on Water unifies the singular impact of a stone on water with the endlessly extendable ripples of repetition produced both by language and by the form of the samizdat book from which the poem is made. This double meaning of repetition recurs right up to the present. It is found, more disturbingly, in the recent controversy over conceptual writing and race. The Mongrel Coalition may have sought to “BURN DOWN THE HOUSE” of conceptualism, but it also extended the same cultural logic of the copy.20 The double function of repetition—its production of sameness and difference—has made it a troubling figure for those seeking a form for freedom. Many have worried that to say one can find freedom merely by giving another’s words, ideas, or norms a new inflection reduces liberation to a whimper and agency to a mere flicker in the machine.21 We see this tension in Bök’s and Bonney’s reiterations of Rimbaud. Bök explores the formal possibilities of repetition with difference, while remaining seemingly indifferent to the political and social world. Bonney more anxiously engages the double meaning of repetition, conceiving revolution as a political and social transformation and as a circumlocutory return to where we began. Partly because of its openness to such seemingly divergent poetries and interpretations, repetition has become the dominant model for poetic engagements with cultural and political authority today. Repetition might seem to have become a goal in itself for today’s writers, who seek to circulate their work on networks that are not only national or regional but global. Their preference for language processing, translation, and circulation appears to set them apart from a writer like Brathwaite, who remained committed to the modernist idea that the poet could uniquely fuse various languages and cultural traditions. Yet like these younger

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writers, Brathwaite repeated and circulated different versions of his works, transforming them from modernist idiolects into engagements with the copy logic of global networks and new media. If we listen hard to such writings, we hear not poetic masterworks but copy works remastering the rhythm of global literature.

NOTES

INTRODUCTION 1. Mark Earls and John V. Willshire, Copy, Copy, Copy: How to Do Smarter Marketing by Using Other People’s Ideas (Somerset, NJ: Wiley, 2015). In the field of computer science, iterative and iteration describe both mathematical programming methods and workflow models for design development; for example, J. F. Kelley, “An Iterative Design Methodology for User-Friendly Natural Language Office Information Applications,” Transactions on Information Systems 2, no. 1 (1984): 26–41; J. Nielsen, “Iterative User-Interface Design,” Computer 26, no.  11 (1993): 32–41. Iterative design principles have also been applied to other fields; for instance, H. B. Wang, J. L. Wang, and J. Lam, “Robust Fault Detection Observer Design: Iterative LMI Approaches,” Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Control 129, no.  1 (2007): 77–82; David  C. Wynn, Claudia  M. Eckert, and P. John Clarkson, “Modelling Iteration in Engineering Design,” paper presented at the 16th International Conference on Engineering Design, Paris, August 28–31, 2007. 2. Already in the 1990s, “the culture of the copy” seemed “pervasive.” By the 2010s, copies were increasingly recognized as “everywhere around us” and as “a crucial factor in our ability to make sense of ourselves and the world.” Hillel Schwartz, The Culture of the Copy: Striking Likeness, Unreasonable Facsimiles (New York: Zone, 1996), 17; Marcus Boon, In Praise of Copying (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010), 9–10. 3. Marjorie Perloff, Unoriginal Genius: Poetry by Other Means in the New Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010); Kenneth Goldsmith, Uncreative Writing: Managing Language in the Digital Age (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011). On the iterations of performance, or “versionings,” in contemporary

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poetry, see, for example, Kenneth Sherwood, “Elaborate Versionings: Characteristics of Emergent Performance in Three Print/Oral/Aural Poets,” Oral Tradition 21, no. 1 (2006): 119–47. On the use of translation in contemporary poetic composition, see, for example, Juliana Spahr, “Connected Disconnection and Localized Globalism in Pacific Multilingual Literature,” boundary 2 31, no. 3 (2004): 75–100. On sampling, see Brian McHale, The Obligation Toward the Difficult Whole: Postmodernist Long Poems (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2004), 254–56. On reiterations of a poetic work across multiple media, see Marjorie Perloff, “Screening the Page / Paging the Screen: Digital Poetics and the Differential Text,” in New Media Poetics: Contexts, Technotexts, and Theories, ed. Adalaide Morris and Thomas Swiss (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006), 143–64. On the use of multiple media in poetic works, see, for example, Maghiel van Crevel, Chinese Poetry in Times of Mind, Mayhem and Money (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 459–74. On the rise of constraint-based poetries, see Brian  M. Reed, Phenomenal Reading: Essays on Modern and Contemporary Poetics (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2012), 191–213. On the impact of the Internet on literature, see, for example, Michel Hockx, Internet Literature in China (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015); Heather Inwood, Verse Going Viral: China’s New Media Scenes (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2014). 4. See, for example, Kaja Marczewska’s account of the “Iterative Turn,” which she defines in much narrower terms as applying only to a relatively small set of avantgarde works that are “inherently uncreative” and “composed by means of copying.” Kaja Marczewska, This Is Not a Copy: Writing at the Iterative Turn (New York: Bloomsbury, 2018), 7. 5. On these fault lines, see, for example, Adalaide Morris, “Saying It Again: Ideas, Things, and Poetry in the Americas,” American Literary History 28, no. 2 (2016): 318. For critical work that does point to formal commonalities across the mainstream-experimental divide, see Stephanie Burt (writing as Stephen Burt), “Sestina! or, The Fate of the Idea of Form,” Modern Philology 105, no. 1 (2007): 218–41; and Reed, Phenomenal Reading, 191–213. The persistence of the false opposition between form and identity is evinced in the work of Marjorie Perloff, who insists on a sharp distinction between literary criticism and cultural critique “especially with regard to postcolonialism, race, and gender.” Marjorie Perloff, Poetry on and off the Page: Essays for Emergent Occasions (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1998), 32. For a critique of Perloff, see Dorothy J. Wang, Thinking Its Presence: Form, Race, and Subjectivity in Contemporary Asian American Poetry (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014), 5–6. On the falseness of the opposition, see also Timothy Yu, Race and the Avant-Garde: Experimental and Asian American Poetry Since 1965 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009), 161. 6. On the iterative form of those cited poets not discussed here in detail, see Joan Fleming, “ ‘You Can of Course Keep Shaking the Box’: Errant Versioning and Textual Motion in the Iterations of Anne Carson” (MA thesis, University of Otago, New Zealand, 2013); Joan Fleming, “ ‘Talk (Why?) with Mute Ash’: Anne Carson’s Nox as Therapeutic Biography,” Biography 39, no. 1 (2016): 64–78; Bradley Watson, “Renegotiating Stereotypes: Representations of the Pacific Woman in Selina Tusitala Marsh’s and Tusiata Avia’s Poetry” (MA thesis, University of Otago, New Zealand, 2014).

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7. Emma Neale, Tender Machines (Dunedin, New Zealand: Otago University Press, 2015), 104. 8. Vanessa Place, Boycott (New York: Ugly Duckling, 2013). 9. For example, Paul Stephens, The Poetics of Information Overload: From Gertrude Stein to Conceptual Writing (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015); Liz Kotz, Words to Be Looked At: Language in 1960s Art (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2007); Craig Dworkin and Kenneth Goldsmith, eds., Against Expression: An Anthology of Conceptual Writing (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2011); Craig Dworkin, ed., The UbuWeb Anthology of Conceptual Writing, UbuWeb, http://www.ubu.com/concept/. 10. Jamie Hilder, “Concrete Poetry and Conceptual Art: A Misunderstanding,” Contemporary Literature 54, no. 3 (2013): 585. 11. Caroline Levine, Forms: Whole, Rhythm, Hierarchy, Network (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015), 58. 12. Levine, 81. 13. See also the claim that in the contemporary world “copying appears to be the most common way that autocracy diffuses.” Paul D’Anieri, “Autocratic Diffusion and the Pluralization of Democracy,” in Power in a Complex Global System, ed. Louis W. Pauly and Bruce W. Jentleson (London: Routledge, 2014), 85. 14. Hence “there is no such thing as repetition,” but only “insistence.” Gertrude Stein, Writings, 1932–1946, ed. Catharine  R. Stimpson and Harriet Chessman (New York: Library of America, 1998), 288. On the “alterity” that accompanies the “repetition” of a text in a new context as a function of the “iterability” of writing, see Jacques Derrida, Limited Inc (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1988), 9. On Stein’s “iterative poetics,” see also Susan  L. Holbrook, “Lifting Bellies, Filling Petunias, and Making Meanings Through the Transpoetic,” American Literature 71, no. 4 (1999): 752. 15. For example, Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990; Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2014); Homi  K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (1994; Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2004). 16. Roland Barthes, “From Work to Text,” in Image, Music, Text, trans. Stephen Heath (London: Fontana, 1977), 155–64; Roland Barthes, S/Z, trans. Richard Miller (London: Cape, 1975), 6. 17. Dickens’s novel first appeared in serialized form in All the Year Round and Harper’s Weekly from December 1860 to August 1861. On the myriad uses and adaptations of the novel, see Mary Hammond, Charles Dickens’s “Great Expectations”: A Cultural Life, 1860–2012 (Abingdon, UK: Ashgate, 2015). 18. Oxford English Dictionary Online, s.v. “versioning (n.)”; Michael  E. Veal, Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2007), 54–55. 19. Veal, 52–54. 20. Veal, 55. 21. On the Jamaican influence on hip hop, see Janette Beckman and B. Adler, Rap: Portraits and Lyrics of a Generation of Black Rockers (New York: St.  Martin’s, 1991), 15; Jeff Chang, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation (New York: Picador, 2005), 22; Paul Sullivan, Remixology: Tracing the Dub Diaspora (London: Reaktion, 2014); David Toop, The Rap Attack: African Jive to New

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York Hip Hop (Boston: South End, 1984), 19n9; David Sanjek, “ ‘Don’t Have to DJ No More’: Sampling and the ‘Autonomous’ Creator,” Cardozo Arts and Entertainment Law Journal 10, no. 2 (1992): 611. 22. Michael Eldridge, “The Rise and Fall of Black Britain,” Transition 74 (1997): 36; Linton Kwesi Johnson, “A Conversation with Linton Kwesi Johnson,” by Alex Wheatle, Wasafiri 24, no. 3 (2009): 35–36; Anne Walmsley, The Caribbean Artists Movement 1966–1972: A Literary and Cultural History (London: New Beacon, 1992), 297–98, 302, 319; Linton Kwesi Johnson, interview by Jason Gross, Perfect Sound Forever, January 1997, http://www. furious.com/perfect/lkj.html. See also the reference to Brathwaite as “rude / an rootsy / an subversive” in Linton Kwesi Johnson, Mi Revalueshanary Fren: Selected Poems (London: Penguin Books, 2002), 95. For Johnson’s role in the rise of dub poetry, see Linton Kwesi Johnson, “Jamaican Rebel Music,” Race and Class 17, no. 4 (1976): 398; David Katz, Solid Foundation: An Oral History of Reggae (London: Jawbone, 2012), 296; Christian Habekost, Verbal Riddim: The Politics and Aesthetics of African-Caribbean Dub Poetry (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1993), 16. On Brathwaite’s and other Afro-Caribbean poets’ contributions to the development of performance poetry in Britain since the 1960s, see Nicky Marsh, Peter Middleton, and Victoria Sheppard, “ ‘Blasts of Language’: Changes in Oral Poetics in Britain Since 1965,” Oral Tradition 21, no. 1 (2006): 52, 49; cris cheek, “Giving Tongue,” in Assembling Alternatives: Reading Postmodern Poetries Transnationally, ed. Romana Huk (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2003), 247–48. 23. For example, Carrie Noland, Poetry at Stake: Lyric Aesthetics and the Challenge of Technology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999); Michael Davidson, Ghostlier Demarcations: Modern Poetry and the Material Word (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), esp. 196–223. 24. Lisa Gitelman, Always Already New: Media, History, and the Data of Culture (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006), 7. 25. Lisa Gitelman, Scripts, Grooves, and Writing Machines: Representing Technology in the Edison Era (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 67. 26. Rebecca  L. Walkowitz, Born Translated: The Contemporary Novel in an Age of World Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015), 1–2. 27. Already in the 1970s, this shift was noted in, for example, Jacques Attali, Noise: The Political Economy of Music, trans. Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985), 144; Marshall McLuhan and Barrington Nevitt, Take Today: The Executive as Dropout (New York: Harcourt, 1972), 27. 28. Eduardo Navas, Owen Gallagher, and xtine burrough, introduction to The Routledge Companion to Remix Studies, ed. Eduardo Navas, Owen Gallagher, and xtine burrough (New York: Routledge, 2015), 1; Martin Irvine, “Remix and the Dialogic Engine of Culture: A Model for Generative Combinatoriality,” in Navas, Gallagher, and burrough, Routledge Companion to Remix Studies, 16. 29. On poetry’s increasing generic porousness, see Jahan Ramazani, Poetry and Its Others: News, Prayer, Song, and the Dialogue of Genres (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014). 30. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “Rethinking Comparativism,” New Literary History 40, no. 3 (2009): 611.

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31. Emily Apter, Against World Literature: On the Politics of Untranslatability (London: Verso, 2013); Emily Apter, The Translation Zone: A New Comparative Literature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), xi–xii; Lucas Klein, “Alors, la Chinoiserie? The Figure of China in Theorizations of World Literature,” Literature Compass 12, no. 8 (2015): 420. 32. Franco Moretti, “Conjectures on World Literature,” New Left Review 1 (2000): 56; Pascale Casanova, The World Republic of Letters, trans. M. B. DeBevoise (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004). 33. Franco Moretti, “Evolution, World-Systems, Weltliteratur,” in Studying Transcultural Literary History, ed. Gunilla Lindberg-Wada (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2006), 114–15. 34. Moretti, “Conjectures on World Literature,” 56–58. 35. For example, Moretti, “Evolution, World-Systems, Weltliteratur,” 120; Stephen Owen, “What Is World Poetry? The Anxiety of Global Influence,” New Republic, November 19, 1990, 28–32; Stephen Owen, “Stepping Forward and Back: Issues and Possibilities for ‘World’ Poetry,” Modern Philology 100, no. 4 (2003): 532–48. 36. David Damrosch, What Is World Literature? (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 4. 37. Brent Hayes Edwards, The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003), 7. 38. Jahan Ramazani, A Transnational Poetics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), xii–xiii. 39. “Circulations” is Susan Stanford Friedman’s term. See Friedman, “Planetarity: Musing Modernist Studies,” Modernism/modernity 17, no. 3 (2010): 482–83; Susan Stanford Friedman, “World Modernisms, World Literature, and Comparativity,” in The Oxford Handbook of Global Modernisms, ed. Mark Wollaeger and Matt Eatough (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 503. Other related terms include “webs” and “relation.” Tony Ballantyne, “Race and the Webs of Empire: Aryanism from India to the Pacific,” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 2, no. 3 (2001), http://www.muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_colonialism_and _colonial_history/v002/2.3ballantyne.html; Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation, trans. Betsy Wing (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997); Shu-mei Shih, “Comparison as Relation,” in Comparison: Theories, Approaches, Uses, ed. Rita Felski and Susan Stanford Friedman (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013), 79–98. World-systems and circulation models of global modernism are contrasted in, among others, Eric Hayot, “On Literary Worlds,” Modern Language Quarterly 72, no. 2 (2011): 131; Friedman, “World Modernisms,” 501; Elleke Boehmer, “How to Feel Global: The Modern, the Global and the World,” Literature Compass 9 (2012): 601. 40. Walkowitz, Born Translated, 29. 41. Eric Hayot, “Chinese Modernism, Mimetic Desire, and European Time,” in The Oxford Handbook of Global Modernisms, ed. Mark Wollaeger and Matt Eatough (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 162. 42. Itamar Even-Zohar, “Polysystem Theory,” Poetics Today 1, nos. 1–2 (1979): 295. 43. Jurij Tynjanov, “On Literary Evolution,” trans. C. A. Luplow, in Readings in Russian Poetics: Formalist and Structuralist Views, ed. Ladislav Matejka and Krystyna Pomorski (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1971), 68–73.

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44. Even-Zohar, “Polysystem Theory,” 293. 45. The latter few examples may require some glossing. For Xu Zhimo’s use of translation and commentary as part of his modernist poetics, see Haun Saussy, “Death and Translation,” Representations 94 (2006): 112–30. On the collage poetics of Gandhi’s printing press in South Africa, see Isabel Hofmeyr, Gandhi’s Printing Press: Experiments in Slow Reading (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013), esp. 69–88. Tretyakov described the newspaper as the “epic and bible of our days.” Sergei Tret'iakov, “Novyi Lev Tolstoi,” in Literatura fakta: Pervyi sbornik materialov rabotnikov LEFa, ed. N. F. Chuzhak (Moscow: Federatsiia, 1929), 33. See also Jacob Edmond, “Scripted Spaces: The Geopoetics of the Newspaper from Tret'iakov to Prigov,” Slavic Review 75, no. 2 (Summer 2016): 299–330. 46. Michael North, Novelty: A History of the New (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013), 162–71; Edward  L. Shaughnessy, Sources of Western Zhou History: Inscribed Bronze Vessels (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 7. 47. Fredric Jameson, “Reification and Utopia in Mass Culture,” Social Text 1 (1979): 136. 48. Rey Chow, The Age of the World Target: Self-Referentiality in War, Theory, and Comparative Work (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006), 83. 49. Hayot, “Chinese Modernism,” 157. 50. Hayot, 162. 51. Richard John Murphy, Theorizing the Avant-Garde: Modernism, Expressionism, and the Problem of Postmodernity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 263, 293. 52. Martin Puchner, Stage Fright: Modernism, Anti-theatricality, and Drama (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 25. 53. Patrick Collier, “Imperial/Modernist Forms in the Illustrated London News,” Modernism/modernity 19, no. 3 (2012): 487. On these two tendencies in modernist studies, see also Douglas Mao and Rebecca  L. Walkowitz, “The New Modernist Studies,” PMLA 123, no. 3 (2008): 737–48; Ann Ardis, “Editor’s Introduction: Mediamorphosis; Print Culture and Transatlantic/Transnational Public Sphere(s),” Modernism/modernity 19, no. 3 (2012): vi–vii. 54. Michael North, The Dialect of Modernism: Race, Language, and TwentiethCentury Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 32. 55. Paul  K. Saint-Amour, The Copywrights: Intellectual Property and the Literary Imagination (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003), 184–85. 56. Michael T. Taussig, Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History of the Senses (London: Routledge, 1993), 16. 57. Charles Altieri, “Afterword: How the ‘New Modernist Studies’ Fails the Old Modernism,” Textual Practice 26, no. 4 (2012): 778. 58. Walter Benjamin, Selected Writings, vol.  4, 1938–1940, trans. Edmund Jephcott et al. and ed. Howard Eiland and Michael W. Jennings (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2003), 208. 59. Boris Grois, “Ekzistentsial'nye predposylki kontseptual'nogo iskusstva,” reprinted in Moskovskii kontseptualizm, ed. Ekaterina Degot' and Vadim Zakharov (Moscow: World Art Muzei, 2005), 332–42; Jorge Luis Borges, Ficciones (New York: Grove, 1962), 49, 52. 60. Borges, 54.

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61. Mikhail Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, ed. Michael Holquist, trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981), 421–22. 62. Dmitrii Prigov, “Conceptualism and the West,” interview by Alexei Alexeyev [Aleksandr Sidorov], trans. Michael Molnar, Poetics Journal 8 (June  1989): 13; Jacob Edmond, A Common Strangeness: Contemporary Poetry, Cross-Cultural Encounter, Comparative Literature (New York: Fordham University Press, 2012), 147, 161–62. 63. Craig Dworkin, “The Fate of Echo,” in Dworkin and Goldsmith, Against Expression, xlv. 64. Dworkin and Goldsmith, Against Expression, 576–77. 65. Djelal Kadir, “World Literature: The Allophone, the Differential, and the Common,” Modern Language Quarterly 74, no. 2 (2013): 300–301. 66. Gitelman, Always Already New, 148; Craig Dworkin, No Medium (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2013), 32. 67. N. Katherine Hayles, How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 192; Alan Liu, Local Transcendence: Essays on Postmodern Historicism and the Database (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 211–36; Lisa Gitelman, ed., Raw Data Is an Oxymoron (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2013); Jessica Pressman, “Reading the Code Between the Words: The Role of Translation in Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries’s Nippon,” Dichtung-digital 37 (2007), http://dichtung -digital.de/2007/Pressman/Pressman.htm. 68. For example, Brian  M. Reed, Nobody’s Business: Twenty-First Century AvantGarde Poetics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013), 14–16; Brian Reed, Phenomenal Reading, 193; Sianne Ngai, Ugly Feelings (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005), 297.

1. POSTCOLONIAL MEDIA 1. James Grainger, quoted in Edward Kamau Brathwaite, “Creative Literature of the British West Indies During the Period of Slavery,” Savacou: A Journal of the Caribbean Artists Movement 1, no. 1 (1970): 52. 2. Brathwaite, 55. 3. Edward Kamau Brathwaite, The Arrivants: A New World Trilogy (London: Oxford University Press, 1973), 49. 4. Edward Kamau Brathwaite, History of the Voice: The Development of Nation Language in Anglophone Caribbean Poetry (London: New Beacon, 1984), 12–13. 5. Brathwaite, 17. 6. Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Conversations with Nathaniel Mackey (Staten Island, NY: We Press; Minneapolis: Xcp, 1999), 168. 7. Charles  W. Pollard, New World Modernisms: T.  S. Eliot, Derek Walcott, and Kamau Brathwaite (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2004), 126. 8. Carrie Noland, “Remediation and Diaspora: Kamau Brathwaite’s Video-Style,” in Diasporic Avant-Gardes: Experimental Poetics and Cultural Displacement, ed. Carrie Noland and Barrett Watten (New York: Palgrave, 2009), 77.

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9. For example, Anthony Reed, Freedom Time: The Poetics and Politics of Black Experimental Writing (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014), 60–63. 10. My argument here builds on Kelly Baker Josephs, “Versions of X/Self: Kamau Brathwaite’s Caribbean Discourse,” Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal 1, no. 1 (2003), http://scholarlyrepository.miami.edu/anthurium/vol1/iss1/4. Where Josephs sees “the computer as an extension of orality” in Brathwaite’s work, however, I show that his conception of orality depends from the outset on his engagement with new media technologies. 11. For example, Homi Bhabha, “Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse,” October 28 (1984): 125–33; Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “Echo,” New Literary History 24, no. 1 (1993): 17–43. 12. On the link between the late nineteenth-century information revolution and anticolonial movements, see C. A. Bayly, “Informing Empire and Nation: Publicity, Propaganda and the Press, 1880–1920,” in Information, Media and Power Through the Ages, ed. Hiram Morgan (Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2001), 197. 13. For examples of anticolonial uses of radio, see Frantz Fanon, “This Is the Voice of Algeria,” in Studies in a Dying Colonialism, trans. Haakon Chevalier (London: Earthscan, 1989), 69–97; Lebona Mosia, Charles Riddle, and Jim Zaffiro, “From Revolutionary to Regime Radio: Three Decades of Nationalist Broadcasting in Southern Africa,” Africa Media Review 8, no. 1 (1994): 1–24. 14. Isabel Hofmeyr, Gandhi’s Printing Press: Experiments in Slow Reading (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013), 43. 15. Peter Manuel, Cassette Culture: Popular Music and Technology in North India (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 3. 16. Jonathan Sterne, MP3: The Meaning of a Format (Durham: Duke University Press, 2012), 211. 17. Jonathan Sterne, The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003), 26–27. 18. See Brent Hayes Edwards’s characterization of black internationalism by analogy with Zora Neale Hurston’s account of how “each singing” of the same spiritual becomes “a new creation”; and Paul Gilroy’s description of the culture of the black Atlantic as “a changing rather than an unchanging same,” an account that in turn draws on LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), Blues People: Negro Music in White America (New York: Morrow, 1963). Brent Hayes Edwards, The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003), 318; Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (London: Verso, 1993), 101. On the possible influence of Blues People on Rights of Passage, see Simon Gikandi, “E. K. Brathwaite and the Poetics of the Voice: The Allegory of History in Rights of Passage,” Callaloo 14, no. 3 (1991): 732. Brathwaite would later explicitly cite Blues People as one of the few “really illuminating studies” of the “sociology of nation-language.” Edward Kamau Brathwaite, “The African Presence in Caribbean Literature,” Daedalus 103, no. 2 (1974): 107n98, 93. 19. See, for example, the continuities between the use of the PDF and the use of predigital media such as mimeography and xerography noted in Lisa Gitelman, Paper Knowledge: Toward a Media History of Documents (Durham: Duke

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University Press, 2014); or how the “explosion of pirated MP3s is in essence no different” from “the transnational wave of cassette piracy.” Sterne, MP3, 28. 20. Edward Kamau Brathwaite, lecture and reading, International Poetry Forum 1987, Pittsburgh, February  10, PennSound, 45:43, http://media.sas.upenn.edu /pennsound /authors/Brathwaite/Brathwaite-Kamau_Intl-Poetry-Forum_Pitts _Feb-10–1987.mp3, 10:18–10:22. 21. E. K. Brathwaite, History of the Voice, 17–18. 22. The subtitle “An Electronic Lecture” appears in Edward Kamau Brathwaite, “English in the Caribbean: Notes on Nation Language and Poetry; An Electronic Lecture,” in English Literature: Opening Up the Canon, ed. Leslie  A. Fiedler and Houston A. Baker Jr. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981), 15–53; and in Edward Kamau Brathwaite, “History of the Voice: The Development of Nation Language in Anglophone Caribbean Poetry; An Electronic Lecture,” in Roots (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993), 271. The subtitle is absent from the 1984 book version, E. K. Brathwaite, History of the Voice. 23. In its first published form, the essay is presented as an edited transcription of “Professor Brathwaite’s unscripted remarks.” E.  K. Brathwaite, “English in the Caribbean,” 15. 24. E. K. Brathwaite, History of the Voice, 17. 25. Brathwaite, 9. 26. Edward Kamau Brathwaite, “Caribbean Theme: A Calypso,” Caribbean Quarterly 4, nos. 3–4 (March–June  1956): 249. The same phrase appears in an even earlier version of the poem. Edward Kamau Brathwaite, “A Caribbean Theme,” in Poetry from Cambridge, 1947–1950: A Selection of Verse by Members of the University and Some Others, ed. Peter Morris Green (London: Fortune, 1951), 13. 27. Edward Kamau Brathwaite, The Development of Creole Society in Jamaica, 1770– 1820 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 308. 28. V. S. Naipaul, quoted in E. K. Brathwaite, Development of Creole Society, 267. Compare Walcott’s 1974 response to Naipaul. Derek Walcott, “The Caribbean: Culture or Mimicry?,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 16, no. 1 (February 1974): 6. 29. Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (1994; Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2004), xii, xiii. 30. In his account of the “iterative” nature of postcolonial “performative agency,” Bhabha cites Butler’s iterative theory of gender and sexuality, which itself draws heavily on Derrida’s notion of iterability. Bhabha, 314. 31. E. K. Brathwaite, Development of Creole Society, 311, 307. 32. Edward Kamau Brathwaite, The Poet and His Place in Barbadian Culture (Bridgetown: Central Bank of Barbados, 1987), 17–18; Edward Kamau Brathwaite, letter to Gordon Rohlehr, May 26, 1974, quoted in Gordon Rohlehr, Pathfinder: Black Awakening in “The Arrivants” of Edward Kamau Brathwaite (Tunapuna, Trinidad: Gordon Rohlehr, 1981), 5. 33. E. K. Brathwaite, History of the Voice, 30n41. 34. T.  S. Eliot, “Author’s Note,” liner note to Four Quartets, British Council / His Master’s Voice C3598–603, 1947, six 12-inch 78 rpm discs. 35. E. K. Brathwaite, History of the Voice, 31n41.

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36. Gramophone hailed the issue of Eliot’s Four Quartets as “what may be the most vital contribution to poetry ever made by the gramophone.” Harlequin [pseud.], “Miscellaneous and Dance,” Gramophone 25, no. 292 (September 1947): 60. 37. E. K. Brathwaite, History of the Voice, 30–31n41. 38. Michael  E. Veal, Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2007), 48; Christian Habekost, Verbal Riddim: The Politics and Aesthetics of African-Caribbean Dub Poetry (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1993), 59. 39. Brathwaite mentions arriving to study in Cambridge, England, having memorized both Macbeth and The Waste Land. Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Barabajan Poems, 1492–1992 (New York: Savacou North, 1994), 56. 40. Eliot, “Author’s Note.” 41. Philip Nanton, “What Does Mr.  Swanzy Want—Shaping or Reflecting? An Assessment of Henry Swanzy’s Contribution to the Development of Caribbean Literature,” Caribbean Quarterly 46, no. 1 (March 2000): 69. 42. Glyne Griffith, “ ‘This Is London Calling the West Indies’: The BBC’s Caribbean Voices,” in West Indian Intellectuals in Britain, ed. Bill Schwarz (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2003), 204–6. 43. Edward Kamau Brathwaite, “Comments on CAM Text,” part 2, January 1, 1991, Caribbean Artists Movement: Papers of Anne Walmsley, GB 2904 CAM/14/1/2, page 20, George Padmore Institute Archive, London. 44. Laurence A. Breiner, “Caribbean Voices on the Air: Radio, Poetry, and Nationalism in the Anglophone Caribbean,” in Communities of the Air: Radio Century, Radio Culture, ed. Susan Merrill Squier (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003), 99. 45. Glyne Griffith, “Deconstructing Nationalisms: Henry Swanzy, Caribbean Voices and the Development of West Indian Literature,” Small Axe 5, no.  2 (September 2001): 2; Griffith, “This Is London Calling,” 206. 46. Glyne Griffith, The BBC and the Development of Anglophone Caribbean Literature, 1943–1958 (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave, 2016), 32. 47. Jessica Berman, “Re-routing Community: Colonial Broadcasting and the Aesthetics of Relation,” in Modernist Communities Across Cultures and Media, ed. Caroline Pollentier and Sarah Wilson (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2019), 252; Peter Kalliney, Commonwealth of Letters: British Literary Culture and the Emergence of Postcolonial Aesthetics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 2. 48. Walmsley notes that the pair saw each other frequently in Ghana. Anne Walmsley, The Caribbean Artists Movement, 1966–1972: A Literary and Cultural History (London: New Beacon, 1992), 157. Walmsley’s account relies, at least in part, on E. K. Brathwaite, “Comments on CAM Text,” 21. 49. Edward Kamau Brathwaite, review of Voices of Ghana: Literary Contributions to the Ghana Broadcasting System, 1955–57, edited by Henry Swanzy, Bim 8, no. 30 (January–June 1960): 131. 50. E. K. Brathwaite, 131; E. K. Brathwaite, “Comments on CAM Text,” 21. 51. Fanon, “This Is the Voice of Algeria,” 96, 97. 52. Edward Kamau Brathwaite, “The Use of Radio in a Developing Society,” Iouanaloa: Recent Writing from St.  Lucia 2 (June  1963): 34. Brathwaite recounts his role in these live broadcasts in E. K. Brathwaite, “Comments on CAM Text,” 17.

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53. Edward Kamau Brathwaite, “Sir Galahad and the Islands,” Bim 25 (1957): 8–16. 54. Edward Kamau Brathwaite, “Sir Galahad and the Islands,” Iouanaloa: Recent Writing from St. Lucia 2 (June 1963): 51. 55. Brathwaite, 51–52. 56. Brathwaite, 55. 57. E. K. Brathwaite, “The Use of Radio,” 36. 58. Denis  S. DaBreo, “The Calypso,” Iouanaloa: Recent Writing from St.  Lucia 2 (June 1963): 60, 62. 59. E. K. Brathwaite, The Arrivants, 48. 60. Derek Walcott, Epitaph for the Young: XII Cantos (Barbados: Advocate, 1949), 4. Walcott expresses his pessimism in an unattributed epigraph to canto 4: “There is not a West Indian Literature” (9). 61. E. K. Brathwaite, “Sir Galahad and the Islands,” Iouanaloa, 54. 62. On the “Calypso Craze,” see Michael Eldridge, “Bop Girl Goes Calypso: Containing Race and Youth Culture in Cold War America,” Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal 3, no. 2 (2005), http://scholarlyrepository.miami.edu/anthurium /vol3/iss2/2. 63. E. K. Brathwaite, “Comments on CAM Text,” 17–18. 64. E. K. Brathwaite, The Arrivants, 162–63. 65. Langston Hughes, The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, ed. Arnold Rampersad and David Roessel (New York: Knopf, 1995), 338–39, 273–75; Janet Neigh, “The Transnational Frequency of Radio Connectivity in Langston Hughes’s 1940s Poetics,” Modernism/modernity 20, no. 2 (2013): 266. 66. E. K. Brathwaite, The Arrivants, 162, 163. 67. Loretta Collins, “From the ‘Crossroads of Space’ to the (dis)Koumforts of Home: Radio and the Poet as Transmuter of the Word in Kamau Brathwaite’s ‘Meridian’ and Ancestors,” Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal 1, no. 1 (2003), http://schol arlyrepository.miami.edu/anthurium/vol1/iss1/3; E.  K. Brathwaite, The Arrivants, 220. 68. E.  K. Brathwaite, The Arrivants, 162–63; Edward Kamau Brathwaite, “Solo for Trumpet,” Kyk-over-al 9, no. 27 (December 1960): 85. 69. E. K. Brathwaite, The Poet and His Place, 19. 70. On the rise of overdubbing and multitracking in music, see Olivier Julien, “The Diverting of Musical Technology by Rock Musicians: The Example of DoubleTracking,” Popular Music 18, no. 3 (October 1999): 358, 360. Mid-1950s advertisements for home tape recorders also stressed the possibilities of multitracking. Steve Jones, “The Cassette Underground,” Popular Music and Society 14, no.  1 (1990): 78. 71. Doris Monica Brathwaite, introduction to A Descriptive and Chronological Bibliography (1950–1982) of the Work of Edward Kamau Brathwaite (London: New Beacon, 1988), vii. 72. Edward Kamau Brathwaite, The Zea Mexican Diary, 7 Sept 1926–7 Sept 1986 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993), 60. 73. Miles Davis, Sketches of Spain, arranged and conducted by Gil Evans, Columbia CS 8271, [1960], 33⅓ rpm. 74. Veal, Dub, 55.

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75. Russell A. Potter, Spectacular Vernaculars: Hip-Hop and the Politics of Postmodernism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), 45, 36. 76. Veal, Dub, 216–17. 77. Veal, 214. 78. E. K. Brathwaite, “Comments on CAM Text,” 19. 79. Compare E. K. Brathwaite, “Caribbean Theme: A Calypso” (1956) with the poem “Calypso” in E. K. Brathwaite, The Arrivants, 48–50. 80. Edward Kamau Brathwaite, liner notes to The Arrivants, CD, Savacou North SA 001, 2001. 81. Walmsley, Caribbean Artists Movement, 41; E. K. Brathwaite, “Comments on CAM Text,” 19. 82. E. K. Brathwaite, liner notes to The Arrivants, CD. 83. John La Rose, quoted in Walmsley, Caribbean Artists Movement, 58. 84. Walmsley, 124, 89. 85. Walmsley, 70. 86. Gordon Rohlehr, “Sparrow and the Language of the Calypso,” chaired by John La Rose, April  7, 1967, cassette tape recording (copied from original reel-to-reel), Caribbean Artists Movement: Papers of Anne Walmsley, GB 2904 CAM/9/1/2/8–9, George Padmore Institute Archive, London. 87. Walmsley, Caribbean Artists Movement, 69. 88. Walmsley, 55, 323. 89. Edward Kamau Brathwaite, “Jazz and the West Indian Novel II,” Bim 45 (July– December 1967): 40. 90. Edward Kamau Brathwaite, “Jazz and the West Indian Novel I,” Bim 44 (January– June 1967): 278. 91. This literary-oral binary reached a peak in the debate over Edward Kamau Brathwaite, ed., “The Youth,” special issue, Savacou 3–4 (1971). Laurence  A. Breiner, “How to Behave on Paper: The Savacou Debate,” Journal of West Indian Literature 6, no. 1 (July 1993): 1–10. 92. E. K. Brathwaite, “Jazz and the West Indian Novel II,” 45, 40. Brathwaite does not include a full citation for his quotation from Lorrimer Alexander’s “Moongazer” in the original publication in Bim but makes the transcription from tape explicit in a note to a later version of the essay. Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Roots (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993), 84n37. 93. E. K. Brathwaite, “Jazz and the West Indian Novel II,” 40. 94. E.  K. Brathwaite, 48. A longer quotation from the dialect version of the story appears in a later version of the essay. E. K. Brathwaite, Roots, 88. 95. Milman Parry, quoted in Albert B. Lord, “Homer, Parry, and Huso,” in The Making of Homeric Verse: The Collected Papers of Milman Parry, ed. Adam Parry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), 470. 96. Jean Price-Mars, So Spoke the Uncle, trans. Magdaline W. Shannon (Washington, DC: Three Continents, 1983), originally published as Ainsi parla l’oncle (1928). On the recordings made in the 1930s by Herskovitz, Lomax, and other US scholars in Haiti under the influence of Price-Mars, see Gage Averill, “Ballad Hunting in the Black Republic: Alan Lomax in Haiti, 1936–37,” Caribbean Studies 36, no. 2 (2008): 3–22. 97. See, for example, Brathwaite’s presentation of his own work as attempting to affirm Jamaican folk traditions and their African origins in the same way that

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Price-Mars’s Ainsi parla l’oncle had done with Haitian folk traditions. Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Folk Culture of the Slaves in Jamaica (London: New Beacon, 1970), 20. 98. Haun Saussy, The Ethnography of Rhythm: Orality and Its Technologies (New York: Fordham University Press, 2016), 102. 99. Saussy, 65–69. 100. Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964; Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999), 77. 101. Gilroy, Black Atlantic, 73, 101, 80. 102. Edward Kamau Brathwaite, interview by Erika Smilowitz, Caribbean Writer 5 (1991): 77. On Nketia’s importance to Brathwaite, see also Michael Sharp, “Echoes of African Praise Songs in the Poetry of Kamau Brathwaite,” in Facts, Fiction, and African Creative Imaginations, ed. Toyin Falola and Fallou Ngom (New York: Routledge, 2010), 92. 103. Many of Nketia’s recordings are held in the J. H. Kwabena Nketia Archives at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana. Maxwell Agyei Addo, “Audiovisual Archives in Ghana,” in Archives for the Future: Global Perspectives on Audiovisual Archives in the 21st Century, ed. Anthony Seeger and Shubha Chaudhuri (Calcutta: Seagull, 2004), 121–22; Seth Paris, “The Archive ‘Speaks’ for Itself—Speeches from Convocation Week 1965,” Audiovisual Preservation and Exchange Ghana, September 15, 2015, http://www.apexghana.org /?p=337. 104. For example, J. H. Kwabena Nketia, Drumming in Akan Communities of Ghana ([Edinburgh]: T. Nelson, 1963); J. H. Kwabena Nketia, Folk Songs of Ghana (Legon: University of Ghana, 1963); J. H. Kwabena Nketia, Funeral Dirges of the Akan People (London: Achimota, 1955); J. H. Kwabena Nketia, “Possession Dances in African Societies,” Journal of the International Folk Music Council 9 (1957): 4–9. All four works are cited in E. K. Brathwaite, Development of Creole Society, 357, 361. 105. Henry Swanzy, ed., Voices of Ghana: Literary Contributions to the Ghana Broadcasting System, 1955–57 (Accra: Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 1958), 16. 106. E. K. Brathwaite, The Arrivants, 90. 107. E. K. Brathwaite, 153. 108. On Brathwaite’s multiple, flexible conception of nation, see Matthew Hart, Nations of Nothing but Poetry: Modernism, Transnationalism, and Synthetic Vernacular Writing (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 133–34. 109. J. H. Kwabena Nketia, “The Poetry of Drums,” in Swanzy, Voices of Ghana, 18. 110. E. K. Brathwaite, The Arrivants, 156–57. 111. Nketia, “Poetry of Drums,” 19–23. 112. Nketia, 18. 113. E. K. Brathwaite, The Arrivants, 98. 114. Nketia, “Poetry of Drums,” 18. 115. E. K. Brathwaite, The Arrivants, 94–97; Maureen Warner Lewis, “Odomankoma Kyerema Se . . .,” Caribbean Quarterly 19, no. 2 (1973): 97n11. 116. E. K. Brathwaite, The Arrivants, 99. 117. Nketia, “Poetry of Drums,” 18. 118. On Nketia’s early identification of oral texts as what Barber terms “object-like” in their “durable formulations that transcend time,” see Leif Lorentzon, “Is African

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Oral Literature Literature?,” Research in African Literatures 38, no. 3 (Fall 2007): 4, 8. Lorentzon here cites Karin Barber, “Quotation in the Constitution of Yorùbá Oral Texts,” Research in African Literatures 30, no. 2 (1991): 18. 119. Nketia, “Poetry of Drums,” 18. 120. E. K. Brathwaite, liner notes to The Arrivants, CD. 121. Edward Kamau Brathwaite, “An Area of Experience: West Indian Poetry,” chaired by Andrew Salkey, December  1, 1967, cassette tape recording (copied from original reel-to-reel), Caribbean Artists Movement: Papers of Anne Walmsley, GB 2904 CAM/9/1/2/15–16, George Padmore Institute Archive, London. Brathwaite sourced the recording of Goveia from the tape of her talk at the first CAM Conference, held at Kent University in Canterbury in September 1967. In his talk Brathwaite reads versions of the poems published as “Ananse” and “Ancestors” in Islands (London: Oxford University Press, 1969). 122. Walmsley, Caribbean Artists Movement, 182. 123. Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Segue reading at the Bowery Poetry Club, New York, May 1, 2004, PennSound, 43:23, http://media.sas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/ Brathwaite/Brathwaite-Kamau_Segue_NY_5–1-04.mp3. 124. E. K. Brathwaite, The Arrivants, 224; Nketia, “Poetry of Drums,” 18–23. 125. E. K. Brathwaite, Segue reading, 8:22–8:40. 126. E. K. Brathwaite, The Arrivants, 222. 127. E. K. Brathwaite, 224. 128. E. K. Brathwaite, 222, 224. 129. Sekhmet Ra Em Kht Maat (Cher Love McAllister), “Legba,” in Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora: Origins, Experiences, and Culture, ed. Carole Elizabeth Boyce Davies (Santa Barbara: ABC CLIO, 2008), 2:625; E. K. Brathwaite, Segue reading, 3:35–3:37. 130. E. K. Brathwaite, The Arrivants, 98–99. 131. E. K. Brathwaite, 224. 132. E. K. Brathwaite, 99, 217. 133. E. K. Brathwaite, Segue reading, 4:34–4:38, 13:36–13:41, 13:53–13:56. 134. Reflecting this circular conception of his trilogy, Brathwaite has described how the order of the poems in The Arrivants could be “juggled”: “There is an order in which Masks could be placed as a splice in the center of Rights of Passage, so that when I say, ‘But I returned to find Jack / Kennedy . . .’—that could come after Masks is finished.” Edward Kamau Brathwaite, interview by Nathaniel Mackey, Hambone 9 (Winter 1991): 44. This alternative ordering is partially realized in Edward Kamau Brathwaite, lecture and reading, International Poetry Forum 1988, Pittsburgh, February  7, PennSound, 58:12, http://media.sas.upenn.edu /pennsound /authors/Brathwaite/Brathwaite-Kamau_Intl-Poetry-Forum_Pitts_ Feb-7–1988.mp3. 135. E. K. Brathwaite, The Arrivants, 218. More recent studies confirm the African origins of these dust clouds in the Caribbean. For example, K. Gyan et al., “African Dust Clouds Are Associated with Increased Paediatric Asthma Accident and Emergency Admissions on the Caribbean Island of Trinidad,” International Journal of Biometeorology 49, no. 6 (2005): 371–76. 136. Edward Kamau Brathwaite, liner notes to Rights of Passage, LP, record 1, Argo DA 101, 1968, 33⅓ rpm; E. K. Brathwaite, “African Presence in Caribbean Literature,” 73.

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137. Edward Kamau Brathwaite, liner notes to Islands, LP, Argo PLP 1184/5, 1973, 33⅓ rpm. 138. Hart, Nations of Nothing but Poetry, 131, 112. 139. Hart, 132. 140. T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land (Richmond: Hogarth, 1923), line 431. 141. E. K. Brathwaite, The Arrivants, 185, 151; Maureen Warner Lewis, Notes to “Masks” (Benin City, Nigeria: Ethiope, 1977), 72. The reiterated “dumb” and “dam” also recall the repetition of “dem” in “Wings of a Dove.” E. K. Brathwaite, The Arrivants, 42–45. 142. E. K. Brathwaite, The Arrivants, 97, 188. 143. E. K. Brathwaite, liner notes to Rights of Passage, LP, record 1. 144. E. K. Brathwaite, The Arrivants, 190, 41. 145. E. K. Brathwaite, The Arrivants, 41. 146. E. K. Brathwaite, Segue reading, 22:20. 147. See the recordings of “The Twist” on E. K. Brathwaite, Rights of Passage, LP, record 1; of “Calypso” on Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Rights of Passage, LP, record 2, Argo PLP1111, 1968, 33⅓ rpm; of “Atumpan” on Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Masks, LP, Argo PLP 1183, 1972, 33⅓ rpm; and of “Caliban” on E. K. Brathwaite, Islands, LP. 148. For example, Brathwaite cites Rights of Passage as “oup 1967/1969/argo” and Masks as “oup 1968/argo” in E. K. Brathwaite, liner notes to Masks, LP. He also cites both formats in the liner notes to Islands, LP. 149. E. K. Brathwaite, Segue reading, 26:00–26:50, 29:55–31:06, 34:33–36:44. 150. E. K. Brathwaite, “Jazz and the West Indian Novel II,” 40. 151. E.  K. Brathwaite, lecture and reading, International Poetry Forum 1988, 21:50–22:07. 152. E. K. Brathwaite, Segue reading, 40:45–41:03. 153. E. K. Brathwaite, The Arrivants, 190, 41. 154. E.  K. Brathwaite, lecture and reading, International Poetry Forum 1988, 21:16– 22:07; E. K. Brathwaite, Segue reading, 40:58–41:00. 155. Gitelman, Paper Knowledge, 101. 156. E. K. Brathwaite, “English in the Caribbean,” 15–53; Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Nation Language Poetry, Savacou Working Paper 5 (Mona, Jamaica: Savacou, 1982). 157. For example, Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Caribbean Man in Space and Time: A Bibliographical and Conceptual Approach, Pamphlet 2 (Mona, Jamaica: Savacou, 1974); Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Gods of the Middle Passage, Savacou Working Paper 2 (Mona, Jamaica: Savacou, 1982). While otherwise virtually unnoted in the literature on Brathwaite, these pamphlets and working papers do appear in Doris Monica Brathwaite, A Descriptive and Chronological Bibliography, 33. 158. Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Afternoon of the Status Crow, Savacou Working Paper 1 (Mona, Jamaica: Savacou, 1982); Edward Kamau Brathwaite, “Caribbean Culture: Two Paradigms,” in Missile and Capsule, ed. Jurgen Martin (Bremen, Germany: Universität Bremen, 1983), 9–54. 159. Gitelman, Paper Knowledge, 69. 160. E. K. Brathwaite, Afternoon of the Status Crow, 4–5, 15, 17a, 24–26, 10. 161. E. K. Brathwaite, 26. 162. E. K. Brathwaite, 28.

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163. E. K. Brathwaite, 1. 164. Edward Kamau Brathwaite, X/Self (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 87. “When I said ‘writing in light’ that is the main thing about it—the miracle of that electronic screen means that the spoken word can become visible.” Edward Kamau Brathwaite, interview by Stewart Brown, Kyk-over-al 40 (December 1989): 87. See also E. K. Brathwaite, Barabajan Poems, 378. 165. E. K. Brathwaite, Afternoon of the Status Crow, 27–28. 166. On Brathwaite’s adaptation of the Simon Says or “Grady Game,” see E. K. Brathwaite, Barabajan Poems, 245. 167. E. K. Brathwaite, Afternoon of the Status Crow, 21. 168. Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Mother Poem (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 61–62. 169. E. K. Brathwaite, 121. 170. E. K. Brathwaite, Afternoon of the Status Crow, 19. 171. E. K. Brathwaite, 27. 172. E. K. Brathwaite, 23; E. K. Brathwaite, “Caribbean Culture,” 39. 173. E. K. Brathwaite, Afternoon of the Status Crow, 22. 174. Brent Hayes Edwards, “Aimé Césaire and the Syntax of Influence,” Research in African Literatures 36, no. 2 (Summer 2005): 11. 175. E. K. Brathwaite, Afternoon of the Status Crow, 21. 176. E. K. Brathwaite, 21. 177. Michel Foucault, “What Is an Author?,” translation of “Qu’est-ce qu’un auteur?” (1969), in Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews, ed. Donald Bouchard (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977), 116. 178. E. K. Brathwaite, Mother Poem, 56–64; E. K. Brathwaite, Afternoon of the Status Crow, 27–28; E. K. Brathwaite, Barabajan Poems, 248–55.

2. THE ART OF SAMIZDAT 1. Ann Komaromi, Uncensored: Samizdat Novels and the Quest for Autonomy in Soviet Dissidence (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2015), 132. 2. See the broad account of the multiple media, geographies, and histories of samizdat in Friederike Kind-Kovács and Jessie Labov, eds., Samizdat, Tamizdat and Beyond: Transnational Media During and After Socialism (New York: Berghahn, 2013). 3. “From 1960 to 1965, the number of tape recorders manufactured per year in the USSR multiplied from 128,000 to almost 500,000. By 1970, the production rate had climbed to more than one million in a single year.” Brian  A. Horne, “The Bards of Magnitizdat: An Aesthetic Political History of Russian Underground Recordings,” in Kind-Kovács and Labov, Samizdat, Tamizdat and Beyond, 178–79. 4. Peter Manuel, Cassette Culture: Popular Music and Technology in North India (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 4. 5. Evelyn Radke, “Magnitizdat v SSSR i GDR,” Russkaia rok-poeziia: Tekst i kontekst 9 (2007): 256; Lisa Gitelman, Paper Knowledge: Toward a Media History of Documents (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014), 101.

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6. Komaromi, Uncensored, 136; Viktor Krivulin, “Zolotoi vek samizdata,” in Samizdat veka, ed. A.  I. Strelianyi, G.  B. Sapgir, B.  S. Bakhtin, and N.  G. Ordynskii (Minsk, Belarus: Polifakt, 1997), 343–44. 7. Friederike Kind-Kovács and Jessie Labov, “Samizdat and Tamizdat: Entangled Phenomena?,” introduction to Kind-Kovács and Labov, Samizdat, Tamizdat and Beyond, 6. 8. Horne, “The Bards of Magnitizdat,” 184–85; J. Martin Daughtry, “ ‘Sonic Samizdat’: Situating Unofficial Recording in the Post-Stalinist Soviet Union,” Poetics Today 30, no. 1 (Spring 2009): 30. 9. Il'ia Kukulin, Mashiny zashumevshego vremeni: Kak sovetskii montazh stal metodom neofitsial'noi kul'tury (Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2015), 420. 10. Dmitrii Prigov, Vosemnadtsataia azbuka: Kamen' i krugi na vode, samizdat artist’s book (Moscow, 1985). 11. Ann Komaromi, “Samizdat as Extra-Gutenberg Phenomenon,” Poetics Today 29, no. 4 (2008): 635. 12. Komaromi, Uncensored, 133–34. 13. Komaromi, “Samizdat as Extra-Gutenberg Phenomenon,” 629. 14. The fetishization of Mandelstam’s poetry even extended to the Soviet-era Western publications of his censored Russian texts. Ann Komaromi, “Ardis Facsimile and Reprint Editions: Giving Back Russian Literature,” in Kind-Kovács and Labov, Samizdat, Tamizdat and Beyond, 47. 15. Gregory Freidin, A Coat of Many Colors: Osip Mandelstam and His Mythologies of Self-Presentation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 41. I am grateful to Kevin Platt for encouraging me to explore Prigov’s allusion to Mandelstam in Stone and Circles on Water. 16. Mandelstam alludes to the stone of Tyutchev’s poem “Problème” (1833) in his essay “Utro akmeizma” (“The Morning of Acmeism”) and in his poem “Paden'e— neizmennyi sputnik strakha” (“Falling is the constant companion of fear”) from Kamen' (Stone). This “fallen stone” is also “kin to the fallen fruit with which Stone itself opens” in later iterations of the book. Clare Cavanagh, Osip Mandelstam and the Modernist Creation of Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 64–65. On the relationship between Tyutchev’s stone and “Falling is the constant companion of fear,” see also Stuart Goldberg, Mandelstam, Blok, and the Boundaries of Mythopoetic Symbolism (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2011), 75–79; and Freidin, Coat of Many Colors, 342n4. 17. Komaromi, “Samizdat as Extra-Gutenberg Phenomenon.” On the possible continuities between samizdat and online self-publication, see Kind-Kovács and Labov, “Samizdat and Tamizdat,” 11. 18. Dmitrii Prigov, Faksimil'noe vosproizvedenie samodel'noi knigi Dmitriia Aleksandrovicha Prigova ‘Evgenii Onegin Pushkina’ s risunkami na poliakh raboty Aleksandra Florenskogo (St. Petersburg: Mit'kilibris; Krasnyi matros, 1998), n.p. 19. The full statement appears in Dmitrii Prigov, “Preduvedomlenie avtora k publikatsii tsikla rabot,” unpublished manuscript, A-Ya Archive, Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union, 071.001.036.01– 03, Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. An edited version of a small part of this author’s statement appears in Dmitrii Prigov,

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“Dimitry Prigov,” A-Ya 1 (1979): 52; and a somewhat longer extract in Dmitrii Prigov, Stikhogrammy (Paris: A-Ya, 1985). 20. Dmitrii Prigov, “Chto by takoe o sebe skazat'?,” MANI (Moscow Archive of New Art) folio 2 (June 1981), envelope 33, Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union, MANI 2.02.33.01, Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. 21. Prigov, Nevozmozhnaia kniga (Moscow, 1977), samizdat book, quoted in Prigov, “Chto by takoe o sebe skazat'?” 22. Serguei Alex Oushakine, “The Terrifying Mimicry of Samizdat,” Public Culture 13, no. 2 (2001): 191–214. 23. See, for example, Boris Eikhenbaum’s stress on Gogol’s “play with reality” and “with all the norms and laws of real emotional and mental life,” and Viktor Shklovsky’s description of Eugene Onegin as a novel where the leading role is played not by the characters Onegin and Tatyana but by “the emplotted treatment of the story.” Eikhenbaum, Literatura: Teoriia, kritika, polemika (Leningrad: Priboi, 1927), 163, italics in original; Shklovskii, O teorii prozy (Moscow: Federatsiia, 1929), 204. On “re-articulation,” see Mikhail Bakhtin, “The Problem of Speech Genres,” trans. Vern  W. McGee, in Speech Genres and Other Late Essays, ed. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986), 80; Mikhail Bakhtin, Problemy tvorchestva Dostoevskogo (Kiev: Next, 1994), 143; Mikhail Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, ed. Michael Holquist and trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981), 419–22. Yelena Kalinsky notes that the Collective Actions group, in which Prigov and other Moscow conceptualists participated, had “an interest in formalist or structuralist thinking, . . . no doubt informed by such writers as Viktor Shklovsky and Ferdinand de Saussure, whose works were at this time either circulating in samizdat or beginning to be published.” Kalinsky, “Drowning in Documents: Action, Documentation, and Factography in Early Work by the Collective Actions Group,” ARTMargins 2, no.  1 (2013): 90, 90n23. See also Nikita Alekseev, Riady pamiati (Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2008), 104, 175. Prigov notes that the “language of structuralism and phenomenology” was commonplace in Moscow conceptualist thinking of the 1970s. Dmitrii Prigov, “Okh, est', est' chto vspomnit'-to!,” Iskusstvo 1 (1990): 11. 24. Prigov, “Chto by takoe o sebe skazat'?” 25. For example, Dmitrii Prigov, Piat'desiat kapelek krovi (Moscow: Tekst, 1993), 7; Dmitrii Prigov, Sbornik preduvedomlenii k raznoobraznym veshcham (Moscow: Ad Marginem, 1996), 89; Dmitrii Prigov, Sovetskie teksty, 1979–84 (St. Petersburg: Ivan Limbakh, 1997), 92; Dmitrii Prigov, “Kniga kak sposob nechitaniia,” in Tochka zreniia: Vizual'naia poeziia, 90-e gody, ed. Dmitrii Bulatov (Kaliningrad: Simplitsii, 1998), 61; Dmitrii Prigov, Ischisleniia i ustanovleniia: Stratifikatsionnye i konvertatsionnye teksty (Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2001), 46. 26. Craig Dworkin, “Zero Kerning,” Open Letter 12, no. 7 (2005): 10–20. 27. On Prigov’s use of seriality in his Azbuki series, see Gerald Janecek, “Seriality in Prigov: The Alphabet Poems,” Jacket2, December  10, 2012, https://jacket2.org /commentary/dmitri-prigov’s-abc-russian-culture. 28. Dmitrii Prigov, Chernovik poeta (Moscow, 1977), samizdat book, MANI (Moscow Archive of New Art) folio 2 (June  1981), envelope 33, Norton and Nancy

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Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union, MANI 2.02.33.02, Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. Prigov’s reiterations of Pushkin are myriad, but early examples (prior to the 1977 publication of Chernovik poeta) include Dmitrii Prigov, “Moi diadia,” “Pora, moi drug, pora!,” and “Ia pomniu chudnoe mgnoven'e,” in Kul'turnye pesni (Moscow, 1974), samizdat book; Dmitrii Prigov, Moi diadia samykh chestnykh pravil, collage, typewritten text on paperboard, 1975, Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union, 25183, Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. 29. Vissarion Belinskii, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 13 vols. (Moscow: Akademiia nauk, 1953–59), 7:503. 30. Dmitrii Prigov, Sobranie stikhov, vol.  4, 1978, ed. Brigitte Obermayr (Vienna: Gesellschaft zur Förderung Slawistischer Studien, 2003), 755–56. 31. Prigov, Moi diadia samykh chestnykh pravil. 32. Dmitrii Prigov, “Stikhi dlia Dzhordzhika,” in PMP—Positive or Tangential Reconstruction, by the Prigov Family Group (Dmitrii Prigov, Natalia Mali, and Andrei Prigov) (Moscow: Gosudarstvennyi tsentr sovremennogo iskusstva, 2004). 33. For example, Dmitrii Prigov, “Mantras: Drei Versionen der 1. Strophe von Pushkins Versroman ‘Evgenii Onegin,’ ” 1999, http://www.soldatkuepper.de/musik /mantra2.mp3; Dmitrii Prigov, “Mantra vysokoi russkoi kul'tury,” “Vtoraia mezhregional'naia konferentsiia v ramkakh isledovatel'skogo proekta ‘Lokal'nye istorii,’ ” Noril'sk, November  2–5, 2005, YouTube, video, 11:00, posted July  27, 2007, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2my8S_dwZA; Arkadii Kirichenko, Sergei Letov, Aleksandr Aleksandrov, and Dmitrii Prigov, Tri ‘O’ i odin D.  A. Prigov (Moscow, 2002), CD. 34. Dmitrii Prigov, from the series Telegrammy (Moscow, 1981), three untitled artist’s books, each comprising one folded leaf, typescript pasted on cartridge paper, in MANI (Moscow Archive of New Art) folio 2 (June 1981), envelope 33, Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union, MANI 2.02.33.07, Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. Copies of these books are also held in the British Library. 35. Prigov, Sobranie stikhov, 756. 36. Compare the vint (screw) work that is simultaneously part of Prigov’s Alphabet series: Dvadtsat' vtoraia azbuka (Vint), samizdat book/sculpture (1985). For a photograph of the work, see Jacob Edmond, “Dmitrij Prigov’s Iterative Poetics,” Russian Literature 76, no. 3 (2014): 284. 37. Prigov, “Stikhi dlia Dzhordzhika.” 38. Ann Komaromi, “The Material Existence of Soviet Samizdat,” Slavic Review 63, no. 3 (2004): 615. 39. Yelena Kalinsky, “The MANI Archive,” Zimmerli Journal 5 (Fall 2008): 120. 40. Kalinsky, “Drowning in Documents,” 91–99; Kollektivnye deistviia [Collective actions], Vosproizvedenie, textual and photographic documentation of an art action, MANI (Moscow Archive of New Art) folio 2 (June  1981), envelope 21, Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union, MANI 2.01.21, Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ.

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41. Aleksandr Iulikov, Illiustratsii k stikham Osipa Mandel'shtama, photographic reproductions of ink and graphite drawings, MANI (Moscow Archive of New Art) folio 3 (December 1981), envelope 33, Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union, MANI 3.02.33, Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. 42. Prigov, “Chto by takoe o sebe skazat'?” 43. Dmitrii Prigov, “Ob Orlove i koe-chto obo vsem,” MANI (Moscow Archive of New Art) folio 2 (June 1981), envelope 32, Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of  Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union, MANI 2.02.32, Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. 44. Prigov. 45. This distinction derives from Boris Groys’s essay published in samizdat in 1979 and reprinted in the first issue of A-Ya. Boris Grois, “Moskovskii romanticheskii kontseptualizm / Moscow Romantic Conceptualism,” A-Ya 1 (1979): 3–11. For another example of this now commonplace distinction, see Yevgeni Barabanov, “Art in the Delta of Alternative Culture,” in Forbidden Art: The Postwar Russian Avant-Garde, ed. Garrett White (New York: Distributed Art Publishers, 1998), 31. 46. Matthew Jesse Jackson, The Experimental Group: Ilya Kabakov, Moscow Conceptualism, Soviet Avant- Gardes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), 181. 47. Prigov, “Preduvedomlenie avtora k publikatsii tsikla rabot,” 3. 48. Kollektivnye deistviia, description of the art action Bochka, May 31, 1985, Poezdki za gorod, vol.  3, 1985, samizdat, archived at http://conceptualism.letov.ru/KD -actions-38.html. 49. Kollektivnye deistviia. 50. Kollektivnye deistviia, transcription of discussion of the art action Bochka, May 31, 1985, archived at http://conceptualism.letov.ru/KD-bochka-discussion.html. 51. Kollektivnye deistviia. 52. Kollektivnye deistviia. 53. Aleksei Parshchikov, “Zhest bez konteksta,” Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie 87 (2007), http://magazines.russ.ru/nlo/2007/87/pa23.html; Mary A. Nicholas, “Dmitrij Prigov and the Russian Avant-garde, Then and Now,” Russian Literature 39 (1996): 25. 54. Dmitrii Prigov, “Svoboda,” VIGL—Video Glossarii, 2008, http://www.vigl.ru /video/dmitrij-prigov-svoboda. 55. Dmitrii Prigov, “Iskusstvo predposlednikh istin: Beseda s Dmitriem Prigovym,” interview by Petr Vail and Aleksandr Genis, Al'manakh panorama, February 17– 24, 1989, 18. 56. Prigov, Faksimil'noe vosproizvedenie. 57. Prigov. 58. For examples of this post-Soviet tendency to romanticize the samizdat era, see Boris I. Ivanov, “V bytnost' Peterburga Leningradom,” Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie 14 (1995): 188–99; Krivulin, “Zolotoi vek samizdata.” 59. Natal'ia Trauberg, “Vsegda li pobezhdaet pobezhdennyi? Natal'ia Trauberg o khristianskom samizdate,” interview by Boris Kolymagin, Literaturnaia gazeta, April 27–May 2, 2000, 11.

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60. Dmitrii Prigov, Grobiki otrinutykh stikhov (Moscow, 1980s), Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union, 20394.01–04, Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ; Dmitrii Prigov, Grazhdane! Ne zabyvaites', pozhaluista! Raboty na bumage, installiatsiia, kniga, performans, opera i deklamatsiia, ed. Ekaterina Degot' (Moscow: Moscow Museum of Modern Art, 2008), 216. 61. Jacob Edmond, A Common Strangeness: Contemporary Poetry, Cross- Cultural Encounter, Comparative Literature (New York: Fordham University Press, 2012), 151–54. 62. Alexander Pushkin, Eugene Onegin, trans. James E. Falen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 153; Prigov, Faksimil'noe vosproizvedenie. 63. Dmitrii Prigov, TV interview on the channel Kaskad, probably conducted in Kaliningrad, date unknown, YouTube, video, 6:59, posted June 17, 2008, http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBwL-zq8rP8. 64. Komaromi, “Material Existence of Soviet Samizdat,” 615. 65. Barabanov, “Art in the Delta of Alternative Culture,” 31; Dmitrii Prigov, “Conceptualism and the West,” interview by Alexei Alexeyev [Aleksandr Sidorov], trans. Michael Molnar, Poetics Journal 8 (June 1989): 12. 66. For accounts of conceptual writing that stress linguistic materiality, see Marjorie Perloff, Differentials: Poetry, Poetics, Pedagogy (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2004), 192; Craig Dworkin, introduction to The UbuWeb Anthology of Conceptual Writing, ed. Craig Dworkin, UbuWeb, http://www.ubu.com/con cept. For an allegorical reading of conceptual writing, see Michael Golston, Poetic Machinations: Allegory, Surrealism, and Postmodern Poetic Form (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015), 185–96. On conceptual writing and performance, see Molly Schwartzburg, “Encyclopedic Novelties: On Kenneth Goldsmith’s Tomes,” Open Letter 12, no. 7 (2005): 21–36. Kenneth Goldsmith claims that concept trumps instantiation in his conceptual writing: “I like the idea that you can know each of my books in one sentence.” Kenneth Goldsmith, “Being Boring,” Electronic Poetry Center, November  2004, http://epc.buffalo.edu /authors/goldsmith/goldsmith_boring.html. 67. Anna Al'chuk, “Saund-poeziia Dmitriia Aleksandrovicha Prigova v kontekste ego global'nogo proekta,” in Prigov, Grazhdane!, 108–14.

3. MAKING WAVES IN WORLD LITERATURE 1. Eric Hayot, “Against Periodization; or, On Institutional Time,” New Literary History 42 (2011): 745. 2. Stephen Owen, “What Is World Poetry? The Anxiety of Global Influence,” New Republic, November 19, 1990, 28. 3. Xiaobing Tang, “Lu Xun’s ‘Diary of a Madman’ and a Chinese Modernism,” PMLA 107, no. 5 (1992): 1222. 4. Yang Lian and Yo Yo, “Stepping Outside Post–Cultural Revolution: Contemporary Chinese Painting,” trans. Chen Jung-hsuan and Jacob Edmond, Body, August 8, 2013, http://bodyliterature .com /stepping-outside-post-cultural-revolution-six-contem porary-chinese-artists-by-yang-lian-yo-yo.

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5. Franco Moretti, “Conjectures on World Literature,” New Left Review 1 (2000): 58–66. Moretti builds on an idea put forward in Fredric Jameson, “In the Mirror of Alternate Modernities,” in Origins of Modern Japanese Literature, by Karatani Kōjin (Durham: Duke University Press, 1993), xiii. Moretti borrows the term interference from Itamar Even-Zohar, “Laws of Literary Interference,” Poetics Today 11, no. 1 (1990): 53–72. 6. Xiaobing Tang, “Lu Xun’s ‘Diary of a Madman,’ ” 1225, 1222. 7. Xiaomei Chen, Occidentalism: A Theory of Counter-Discourse in Post-Mao China (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 69–98. 8. Yang Lian, Where the Sea Stands Still, trans. Brian Holton (London: Wellsweep, 1995); John Cayley and Yang Lian, Where the Sea Stands Still, HTML, “performance hypertext,” accessed December 17, 2018, http://programmatology.shadoof .net/works/wsss/index.html; John Cayley and Yang Lian, Where the Sea Stands Still, videocassette recording, “performance reading with cybertextual projections” at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, May 27, 1997, 32:18, ICA Archive, London. Parenthetical numbers following quotations from the poem refer first to the part of the poem and then to the subsection within that part. I have sometimes modified Holton’s English translation. 9. For example, Christopher Bush, Ideographic Modernism: China, Writing, Media (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010); Eric Hayot, “Chinese Modernism, Mimetic Desire, and European Time,” in The Oxford Handbook of Global Modernisms, ed. Mark Wollaeger and Matt Eatough (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 160–62; Susan Stanford Friedman, “Planetarity: Musing Modernist Studies,” Modernism/modernity 17, no. 3 (2010): 483–84. 10. Rebecca  L. Walkowitz, “Close Reading in an Age of Global Writing,” Modern Language Quarterly 74, no. 2 (2013): 171–72. 11. Rebecca L. Walkowitz, “Comparison Literature,” New Literary History 40, no. 3 (2009): 569. 12. Yang Lian, “Cong Yu siwang duicheng dao Dahai tingzhi zhi chu” Ṷ˪ᶶ㬣ṉ⮡ 䦘˫ ⇘˪⣏㴟 㬊ᷳ⢬˫, unpublished manuscript, August 29, 1993, Yang Lian Literary Papers, Special Collections, University of Auckland, New Zealand. 13. Li Tuo, “Resisting Writing,” in Politics, Ideology, and Literary Discourse in Modern China: Theoretical Interventions and Cultural Critique, ed. Liu Kang and Xiaobing Tang (Durham: Duke University Press, 1993), 274; Geremie Barmé, Shades of Mao: The Posthumous Cult of the Great Leader (Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 1996), 33, 224. 14. Yang Lian, “Cong Yu siwang duicheng”; Yang and Yo Yo, “Stepping Outside.” 15. Geremie Barmé, “Exploit, Export, Expropriate: Artful Marketing from China, 1989–93,” in Mao Goes Pop: China Post-1989 (Sydney: Museum of Contemporary Art, 1993), 29. 16. Owen, “What Is World Poetry?,” 28–32. Even if Yang had not read Owen’s original article by the time he came to compose Where the Sea Stands Still, he is very likely to have encountered Michelle Yeh’s response to Owen in a journal published by Chinese writers who went into exile after June  4, 1989. Xi Mi ⤂⭮, “Chayi de youlü—yige huixiang” ⶖ⺪䘬⾏嗹——ᶨ᷒⚆⑵, Jintian Ṳ⣑ 1 (1991): 94–96. Tang Xiaodu discerns a direct response to Owen in Yang Lian’s essay on

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Where the Sea Stands Still, “Yinwei Aodexiusi.” Tang Xiaodu Ⓒ㗻㷉, “ ‘Zhongyu bei dahai mo dao le neibu’: Cong dahai yixiang kan Yang Lian piaobo zhong de xiezuo” “买Ḷ塓⣏㴟㐠⇘Ḯℭ悐”: Ṷ⣏㴟シ尉䚳㜐䁤㺪㱲ᷕ䘬⅁ἄ, accessed July  4, 2013, http://yanglian.net/yanglian/comment.html; Yang Lian, “Yinwei Aodexiusi, hai cai kaishi piaoliu” ⚈ᷢ⤍⽟ᾖ㕗, 㴟ㇵ⺨⥳㺪㳩, in Yan dui wo shuo 晩⮡ㆹ宜 (Hong Kong: Ming bao yuekan, 2010), 271–78. 17. Yang Lian, “Chuantong yu women” Ỉ亇ᶶㆹẔ, in Qingnian shiren tan shi 曺⸜ 孿Ṣ宰孿, ed. Lao Mu 侩㛐 (Beijing: Beijing daxue wusi wenxue, 1985), 69–73; Yang Lian, Dahai tingzhi zhi chu: Yang Lian zuopin, 1982–1997; Shige juan ⣏㴟  㬊ᷳ⢬: 㜐䁤ἄ⑩, 1982–1997——孿㫴⌟ (Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi, 1998), 3–28, 73–225. 18. Yang, “Cong Yu siwang duicheng.” 19. Su Xiaokang 喯㙱⹟ and Wang Luxiang 䌳氩㸀, He shang 㱛㭌 (Hong Kong: Zhongguo tushu kan, 1988), 105. 20. Su and Wang, 108. 21. Yang Lian and Gao Xingjian 檀埴‍, “Piaobo shi women huode le shenme?” 㺪㱲 ἧㆹẔ卟⼿ḮṨᷰ?, in Yang Lian, Guihua—Zhili de kongjian: Yang Lian zuopin, 1982–1997; Sanwen—wenlun juan 櫤宅·㘢≃䘬䨢斜: 㜐䁤ἄ⑩, 1982–1997——㔋㔯·㔯 孢⌟ (Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi, 1998), 363–64. 22. Yang, “Yinwei Aodexiusi,” 276, 274. 23. Yang, 276. 24. Yang, 275; Walkowitz, “Close Reading in an Age of Global Writing,” 172; Owen, “What Is World Poetry?,” 32. 25. Yang Lian, “Moved Once Again by an Ancient Betrayal: By Way of a Preface to Concentric Circles,” in Concentric Circles, trans. Brian Holton and Agnes HungChong Chan (Tarset, UK: Bloodaxe, 2005), 10. I am grateful to Xiao Yizhi 倾ᶨᷳ for drawing my attention to the frequent use of the yi ge construction in Where the Sea Stands Still. 26. Yang Lian, Unreal City: A Chinese Poet in Auckland, trans. Hilary Chung and Jacob Edmond (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2006), 88; Yang, Guihua, 28. 27. Yang, Dahai tingzhi zhi chu; Yang Lian, Where the Sea Stands Still: New Poems, trans. Brian Holton (Newcastle, UK: Bloodaxe, 1999). 28. Yang, “Yinwei Aodexiusi,” 277. Yang Lian also entitled a subsequent series of poems Concentric Circles. 29. Yang Lian gives an account of these and other aspects of the poem’s form in Guihua, 259–62. He discusses these formal features in further detail in an unpublished note to his translator, Mabel Lee, entitled “Dahai tingzhi zhi chu fuyan”˪⣏㴟 㬊 ᷳ⢬˫旬妨, Yang Lian Literary Papers, Special Collections, University of Auckland, New Zealand. 30. Cosima Bruno, Between the Lines: Yang Lian’s Poetry Through Translation (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 106. 31. John Cage and Daniel Charles, For the Birds: John Cage in Conversation with Daniel Charles (London: Marion Boyars, 2009), 220–21. 32. John Cayley, email to the Poetics List, State University of New York, Buffalo, September  22, 1995, https://listserv.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=POETICS;c388d 9f5.9509.

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33. Cayley describes the works as a “performance reading with cybertextual projections” in his introduction to the online version of Where the Sea Stands Still, http:// programmatology.shadoof.net/works/wsss/index.html. 34. Yang Lian, “ ‘In the Timeless Air’: Chinese Language, Pound and The Cantos,” trans. Yang Liping with Jeffrey Twitchell-Waas, Painted Bride Quarterly 65 (2001), http: //pbq .drexel .edu /yang-lian -in-the -timeless -air- chinese -language -pound -and-the-cantos. 35. Yang, Unreal City, 68; Yang, Guihua, 4. 36. Yang, “In the Timeless Air.” 37. Ezra Pound, trans. and commentator, Confucius: The Unwobbling Pivot, The Great Digest, The Analects (New York: New Directions, 1969), 20. 38. John Cayley, “Literal Image: Illustrations in The Cantos,” Paideuma 14, nos. 2–3 (1985): 240–48; Ezra Pound, Guide to Kulchur (London: Faber, 1938), 15. Cayley also reads Pound’s Cantos through this Confucian phrase and Pound’s visual and quasi-etymological associations between Chinese characters in two earlier essays: John Cayley, “ ‘New Mountains’: Some Light on the Chinese in Pound’s Cantos,” Agenda 20 (1982): 122–58; John Cayley, “The Gold Thread in the Pattern,” Agenda 22, nos. 3–4 (1984): 126–33. 39. Cayley, “Literal Image,” 240–41; Pound, Confucius, 232. 40. Cayley, “Literal Image,” 240. 41. Cayley, “New Mountains,” 157; Pound, Confucius, 20. 42. John Cayley and Yang Lian, “Hallucination and Coherence,” Positions 10, no. 3 (2002): 779. 43. Cayley and Yang, 780. 44. John Cayley, “Beyond Codexspace: Potentialities of Literary Cybertext,” Visible Language 30, no. 2 (1996): 169. 45. John Cayley, “Chinese Classical Poetry,” in An Encyclopaedia of Translation: Chinese–English, English–Chinese, ed. Chan Sin-wai and David E. Pollard (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1995), 770. 46. Cayley, “Beyond Codexspace,” 169. 47. Cayley, 169n6. 48. This HyperCard version was later published as John Cayley, HyperCard Wine Flying: Non-linear Explorations of a Classical Chinese Quatrain, floppy disk (London: Wellsweep, 1992). 49. Cayley, “Beyond Codexspace,” 173–74. 50. Cayley, 168. 51. John Cayley, Under It All: Indra’s Net Book I; Texts, Hologography, Afterword (London: The Many, 1993), 13. Cayley takes the definition from Kenneth Ch’en, Buddhism in China: A Historical Survey (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964). The emendation is Cayley’s. Cayley elaborates on this definition and its application to programmed poetry in John Cayley, Golden Lion: Indra’s Net IV, floppy disk (London: Wellsweep, 1995). On Indra’s net in Cayley’s poetic theory and practice and in Golden Lion in particular, see Jacob Edmond, “The Elephant in the Room: Literary Theory in World Literature,” Orbis Litterarum 73, no. 4 (2018): 321–24. 52. Cayley, “Beyond Codexspace,” 172. 53. John Cayley, Indra’s Net; or, Hologography, floppy disk (London: Wellsweep, 1993). He also describes his concept of hologography in Under It All, 13–14; and in

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the introduction to John Cayley, Moods and Conjunctions: Indra’s Net III, floppy disk (London: Wellsweep, 1993–94). See Funkhouser for more on Cayley’s conception of hologography and the use of holograms in poetry. C. T. Funkhouser, Prehistoric Digital Poetry: An Archaeology of Forms, 1959–1995 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2007), 179–80, 265–70. 54. This account of the link structure is based on Yang’s map of the links and on Cayley and Yang, Where the Sea Stands Still, HTML. Comparison with Cayley and Yang, Where the Sea Stands Still, videocassette recording, indicates that the HyperCard version (which I was not able to access directly) employed the same link structure. 55. Cayley, “Beyond Codexspace,” 168. 56. As Cayley notes, the automatic links are only “quasi-random” in the HTML version of the poem. John Cayley, “Background Information,” in Cayley and Yang, Where the Sea Stands Still, HTML. That is, the links are predetermined— based, presumably, on a random selection at the time Cayley scripted the poem for HTML publication. Although I have been unable to locate a copy of the HyperCard stack, a comparison with the live performance at the ICA shows that the links in the HyperCard version were randomized. Such randomized links were relatively easy to script in HyperCard and were one of the reasons for the software’s popularity. See, for example, Elke Geisler-Brenstein and Robert J. Brenstein, “The Potential of HyperCard for Psychological Research and Instruction: A General Discussion and Description of Two Research Applications,” Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers 21, no. 2 (1989): 309–10. 57. David Ciccoricco, Reading Network Fiction (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2007), 27. 58. Cayley and Yang, Where the Sea Stands Still, videocassette recording, 10:00–15:00. 59. Cayley and Yang, 19:00–19:30.

4. SHIBBOLETH 1. Judges 12:4–6. 2. Caroline Bergvall, “Marks of Speech: On Siting Writing—The Making of the SiteSpecific Piece Say: ‘Parsley,’ ” in Additional Apparitions: Poetry, Performance, and Site Specificity, ed. David Kennedy and Keith Tuma (Sheffield, UK: Cherry on the Top, 2002), 194. 3. cris cheek, “Reading and Writing: The Sites of Performance,” How2 3, no. 3 (2009), https: //www.asu .edu /piper/how2journal /vol_3_no_3 /bergvall /cheek-reading -writing.html. 4. Caroline Bergvall, Meddle English: New and Selected Texts (Callicoon, NY: Nightboat, 2011), 10–11. Already in 2000 Bergvall was citing Nathaniel Mackey’s 1993 analysis of how the “marginalized context” of African American and AfroCaribbean writers, including Brathwaite, collapses “the divisive hierarchy of form over content by dispersing the processing of style into an understanding of the locatedness of practice and experientiality.” Nathaniel Mackey, Discrepant Engagement: Dissonance, Cross-Culturality, and Experimental Writing (Tuscaloosa: University

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of Alabama Press, 2000), 1; Caroline Bergvall, “Processing Writing: From Text to Textual Interventions” (PhD thesis, University of Plymouth, 2000), 14–15. 5. Simon Murray and John Hall date the establishment of performance writing at Dartington to 1992 and note that Hall acted “for two years as launch director.” Simon Murray and John Hall, “Arts for What, for Where, for Whom? Fragmentary Reflections on Dartington College of Arts, 1961–2010,” Theatre, Dance and Performance Training 2, no. 1 (2011): 59, 55. Sam Richards dates the “launch” of the program to 1994. Sam Richards, Dartington College of Arts: Learning by Doing; A Biography of a College (Follaton, UK: Longmarsh, 2015), 389. The discrepancy may be due to the delay between the approval of the proposal for the new program and its full implementation. 6. John Cayley, Wine Flying: A Chinese Quatrain (London: Wellsweep, 1989), n.p. 7. John Cayley and Yang Lian, Where the Sea Stands Still, videocassette recording, performance reading at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, May  27, 1997, 32:18, ICA Archive, London. 8. Richards, Dartington College of Arts, 293, 279. 9. Richards, 392. 10. Murray and Hall, “Arts for What,” 60. 11. Murray and Hall, 58. 12. Richards, Dartington College of Arts, 309. 13. Caroline Bergvall, “In the Event of Text: Ephemeralities of Writing,” keynote address to the Second International Symposium on Writing and Performance, Utrecht, Netherlands, May  1, 1999, available in Bergvall, “Processing Writing,” 66–70 (downloaded August  19, 2000), and on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, whose earliest archived version is from August  17, 2002, https://web .archive.org /web/20020817230642/http://www.dartington.ac.uk /performwriting /intheeventoftext.html. 14. John Hall, “Performance Writing: Twenty-Years and Still Counting,” Journal of Writing in Creative Practice 6, no. 3 (2013): 359n5; Richards, Dartington College of Arts, 400. 15. Hall, “Performance Writing,” 358. 16. Brian  M. Reed, Nobody’s Business: Twenty-First Century Avant-Garde Poetics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013), 7. 17. Sarah Brouillette, Literature and the Creative Economy (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014), 2. 18. Bergvall, Meddle English, 16. 19. Nicolas Bourriaud, Esthétique relationnelle (Dijon: Les Presses du réel, 1998). 20. Claire Bishop, “Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics,” October 110 (2004): 61. 21. Bishop, 67; Brouillette, Literature and the Creative Economy, 2. 22. For example, Bergvall, “Processing Writing,” 17; Bergvall, “In the Event of Text.” 23. cris cheek, Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (2005), PennSound, 33:04, http: //media .sas .upenn .edu /pennsound /authors /cheek /Coleridge - S -T_cheek -cris_Rime-of-Ancient-Mariner_Jan-2005.mp3. 24. Bishop, “Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics,” 67. 25. Bishop, 79. 26. Gertrude Stein, Writings, 1932–1946, ed. Catharine  R. Stimpson and Harriet Chessman (New York: Library of America, 1998), 288; on Stein’s influence on

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Bergvall, see also Brian  M. Reed, “ ‘Lost Already Walking’: Caroline Bergvall’s ‘Via,’ ” Jacket 34 (2007), http://jacketmagazine.com/34/reed-bergvall.shtml. 27. Caroline Bergvall, “What Do We Mean by Performance Writing?,” keynote presented at the Symposium of Performance Writing, Dartington College of Arts, April  12, 1996, accessed May  10, 2011, http://www.carolinebergvall.com/content /text/BERGVALL-KEYNOTE .pdf. 28. Bergvall. 29. Cayley participated in the first performance writing symposium at Dartington in 1996, taught third-year performance writing students at Dartington in 2008, and held an honorary fellowship at the college in 2000. At Dartington, cheek “had the fortune to work on the undergraduate and post-graduate programmes . . . alongside Caroline, from 1995–2002.” John Cayley, curriculum vitae, accessed June  22, 2017, https://vivo.brown.edu/docs/j/jcayley_cv.pdf ?dt=521315106; cheek, “Reading and Writing.” 30. cheek, “Reading and Writing.” 31. Noth’rs was first published in Performance Research, a journal founded in 1996 that became another institutional vehicle for the promotion of performance writing. John Cayley and Caroline Bergvall, Noth’rs, CD-ROM accompanying Performance Research 4, no.  2 (Summer 1999). See also the cut-back HTML version published in Riding the Meridian 1, no.  1 (1999), http://www.heelstone.com /meridian/cayley.html. The original HyperCard version can be downloaded from Cayley’s website Programmatology, http://programmatology.shadoof.net /?p =contents/downloads.html. 32. Romana Huk, introduction to Assembling Alternatives: Reading Postmodern Poetries Transnationally, ed. Romana Huk (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2003), 15–16, 22–26, 36n24. Glazier also registers Bergvall’s participation in the conference as an important moment in the development of “an international e-poetic consciousness.” Loss Pequeño Glazier, Digital Poetics: The Making of E-poetries (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2002), 145–46. 33. Robert Grenier, “On Speech,” This 1 (1971). See especially Ron Silliman’s influential citation of Grenier’s slogan in Ron Silliman, preface to In the American Tree: Language, Realism, Poetry, ed. Ron Silliman (Orono, ME: National Poetry Foundation, 2002), xvii–xxiii. 34. Jennifer Ashton, “Sincerity and the Second Person: Lyric After Language Poetry,” Interval(le)s 4–5 (2009): 94–108; Oren Izenberg, “Language Poetry and Collective Life,” Critical Inquiry 30, no. 1 (2003): 132–59; Barrett Watten, Questions of Poetics: Language Writing and Consequences (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2016), 8. 35. Watten, Questions of Poetics, 8. 36. Jennifer Ashton, “Our Bodies, Our Poems,” American Literary History 19, no. 1 (2007): 228. 37. Caroline Bergvall, “No Margins to This Page: Female Experimental Poets and the Legacy of Modernism,” fragmente 5 (1992): 30–31, 33–36. 38. Ashton, “Our Bodies, Our Poems,” 221–22. 39. Rita Felski, Beyond Feminist Aesthetics (London: Hutchinson, 1989), 5, quoted in Bergvall, “No Margins,” 36. See also the extended exploration of the problem in

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Sianne Ngai, “Bad Timing (a Sequel): Paranoia, Feminism, and Poetry,” Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 12, no. 2 (2001): 1–46. 40. Bergvall, “No Margins,” 30. 41. Bergvall, 36. Bergvall here cites Felski, Beyond Feminist Aesthetics, 39. 42. Caroline Bergvall, “Monique Wittig: From the Avoidance of the Feminine to Universal Strategies,” Work in Progress: A Journal of Comparative Critical Studies in Literature and the Arts 2 (1992): 20, 22. 43. Caroline Bergvall, “In the Place of Writing,” in Huk, Assembling Alternatives, 327–28, 330. 44. Bergvall, 333. 45. Caroline Bergvall, Goan Atom (Cambridge, UK: Rem, 1999). References here are to the version published as “Goan Atom (Doll),” in Bergvall, Meddle English, 63–121. Caroline Bergvall, Flèsh a Coeur (London: Gefn, 2000). 46. Bergvall, Meddle English, 76. 47. Bergvall, 71. 48. Bergvall, 73. 49. Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990; Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2014), 173, 169; Bergvall, “Monique Wittig”; Bergvall, Meddle English, 11. 50. Butler, Gender Trouble, 169. 51. Bergvall, Meddle English, 72. 52. Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex (New York: Routledge, 1993), xxi. 53. Butler, xxiii, xxx. 54. Butler, Gender Trouble, 179, 192. 55. Butler, 198. 56. Butler, Bodies That Matter, xxix. 57. Carrie Noland, Agency and Embodiment: Performing Gestures / Producing Culture (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009), 184. 58. Butler, Gender Trouble, 164. 59. See Language writer Lyn Hejinian’s use of the term “open text” in her essay “The Rejection of Closure.” Lyn Hejinian, The Language of Inquiry (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 43. On the open text in Language writing and Hejinian’s work in particular, see Jacob Edmond, “The Closures of the Open Text: Lyn Hejinian’s ‘Paradise Found,’ ” Contemporary Literature 50, no.  2 (Summer 2009): 240–72. 60. See Brian McHale on the tension between symptom and diagnosis in Andrews’s poem. Brian McHale, The Obligation Toward the Difficult Whole: Postmodernist Long Poems (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2004), 162–67. 61. Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Surge: Drafts 96–114 (Cromer, UK: Salt, 2013), 48–58. 62. DuPlessis performed both characters in her reading at the London Cross-Genre Festival, Greenwich University, London, July  15, 2010. The work has also been staged by others as a work of poet’s theater. Directed by Lara Durback, it was performed at Small Press Traffic’s Poets Theater on January  28, 2011, https:// vimeo.com/channels/167389. 63. Bergvall, Meddle English, 89. 64. Bergvall, 163.

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65. Hans Bellmer, interview by Peter Webb, January 15, 1972, quoted in Peter Webb, with Robert Short, Hans Bellmer (London: Quartet, 1985), 38. 66. Caroline Bergvall, “An Interview with Caroline Bergvall,” by Linda A. Kinnahan, Contemporary Women’s Writing 5, no. 3 (2011): 249. 67. Of course, there are significant exceptions to this European disregard, such as Palermo mayor Leoluca Orlando, who reportedly welcomes migrants as “Palermitan citizens” and condemns how “Europe is killing people” through its policies on migration. Renate van der Zee, “He Fought the Mafia and Won: Now This Mayor Is Taking On Europe Over Migrants,” Guardian, April  18, 2017, https:// www.theguardian .com /global-development-professionals -network /2017/apr/18 /he -fought -the -mafia - and -won -now -this -mayor -is -taking - on - europe - over -migrants. 68. Caroline Bergvall, Drift (Brooklyn, NY: Nightboat, 2014). 69. Bergvall, 161. 70. Heimrad Bäcker, Seascape, trans. Patrick Greaney (New York: Ugly Duckling, 2013). 71. Charles Bernstein, Pitch of Poetry (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016), 41. 72. These extracts come from a passage on the term hafvilla in Geoffrey Marcus, The Conquest of the North Atlantic (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 1980), 107. 73. Bergvall, Drift, 39–40. 74. See the whiteout of the entire text of Monica Aasprong’s Mellom Alex Gobulev og meg: Roman (Oslo: Tiden Norsk, 1997) except each instance of the letter t. This deletion work was exhibited in 2007 at the Babel Gallery during the Trondheim Literary Festival. It is reproduced as part 4 of Monica Aasprong, “Soldatmarkedet,” Afsnit P, October  3, 2007, http://www.afsnitp.dk /galleri/soldatmarkedet /index.html. Part 1 of the same online publication also comprises text made entirely of the letter t. Aasprong further underscores the material, tactile quality of the printed letter through the repeated blind-stamped letters on the cover of Monica Aasprong, Soldatmarkedet (Oslo: Damm, 2006). 75. Caroline Bergvall, Fig: Goan Atom 2 (Cambridge, UK: Salt, 2005), 63–71. On the alphabetical ordering technique, see also Reed, “Lost Already Walking.” 76. Theodore J. Cachey Jr., “Between Hermeneutics and Poetics: Modern American Translation of the ‘Commedia,’ ” Annali d’Italianistica 8 (1990): 145n2. 77. Genevieve Kaplan, “How We Read Caroline Bergvall’s ‘Via’ and Why We Should Care,” Jacket 38 (2009), http://jacketmagazine.com /38/bergvall-by -kaplan.html. 78. Bergvall, Fig, 64–65. For her emphasis on the particularities of each “platform,” see Caroline Bergvall, untitled talk, in Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry Birkbeck Launch Event 2009: Selected Papers, ed. Robert Sheppard and Scott Thurston (Canterbury, UK: Gylphi, 2009), 23. 79. Bergvall, Fig, 64–65. 80. Caroline Bergvall, “A Recording of ‘Via’ with Ciarán Maher, Summer 2000,” PennSound, 10:00, http://mediamogul.seas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/Bergvall /Bergvall-Caroline-Via-2004.mp3. 81. Craig Dworkin, “Editor’s Introduction: Grammar Degree Zero,” in Re-writing Freud, by Simon Morris (York, UK: Information as Material, 2005), 11.

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82. Charles Olson, The Collected Poems of Charles Olson: Excluding the “Maximus” Poems, ed. George F. Butterick (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 158. 83. Olson, 158; Charles Olson, Collected Prose, ed. Donald Allen and Benjamin Friedlander (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 241, 239. 84. Laura Goldstein, “Translation as Performance: Caroline Bergvall’s ‘Via,’ ” How2 3, no. 3 (2009), http://www.asu.edu/pipercwcenter/how2journal/vol_3_no_3/bergvall /goldstein-translation-performance.html; Nathan Brown, “Objects That Matter: Olson, Bergvall, and the Poetics of Articulation,” How2 3, no. 3 (2009), http://www .asu.edu/pipercwcenter/how2journal/vol_3_no_3/bergvall/nathan-brown-objects -that-matter.html. 85. Bergvall, Drift, 111–24, 169–73, 175–81. 86. Bergvall, Meddle English, 7. 87. Bergvall, Drift, 181. 88. Bergvall, Meddle English, 150. 89. Bergvall, Fig, 53. 90. Bergvall, Meddle English, 140. 91. Bergvall, 146. 92. Bergvall, 150. 93. Gertrude Stein, Writings, 1903–1932, ed. Catharine  R. Stimpson and Harriet Chessman (New York: Library of America, 1998), 282. For the distinction between identity and entity, see “What Are Master-pieces and Why Are There So Few of Them,” in Stein, Writings, 1932–1946, 355–63. 94. William Carlos Williams, “To Elsie,” in Selected Poems, ed. Charles Tomlinson (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1976), 56. 95. Bergvall, Meddle English, 148. 96. Oxford English Dictionary Online, s.v. “crop (n.).” 97. Oxford English Dictionary Online, s.v. “cropper (n.1).” 98. Oxford English Dictionary Online, s.v. “corpse.” 99. Viktor Shklovskii, O teorii prozy (Moscow: Federatsiia, 1929), 12–13. 100. Vincent Broqua, “Pressures of Never-at-Home,” Jacket 32 (2007), http://jacketmagazine.com/32/p-broqua.shtml; Svetlana Boym, “Estrangement as a Lifestyle: Shklovsky and Brodsky,” Poetics Today 17, no. 4 (1996): 511–12. 101. Bergvall, Drift, 135–36. 102. Bergvall, 164. 103. Adalaide Morris also notes the striking similarities between the two works in “Forensic Listening: NourbeSe Philip’s Zong!, Caroline Bergvall’s Drift, and the Contemporary Long Poem,” Dibur Literary Journal 4 (2017): 77–87. 104. M. NourbeSe Philip, Zong! As Told to the Author by Setaey Adamu Boateng (Toronto: Mercury; Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2008), 190. 105. Bergvall, Drift, 146. 106. Philip, Zong!, 199. For variations on this phrase, see pages 190, 198, 206, and 207. 107. Philip, 127. 108. Bergvall, Drift, 131. 109. Philip, Zong!, 3.

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110. Christina Sharpe, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being (Durham: Duke University Press, 2016), 109. 111. M. NourbeSe Philip, “Defending the Dead, Confronting the Archive: A Conversation with M. NourbeSe Philip,” interview by Patricia Saunders, Small Axe 12, no. 2 (June 2008): 78. 112. Juliana Spahr and Stephanie Young, “The Program Era and the Mainly White Room,” Los Angeles Review of Books, September 20, 2015, https://lareviewofbooks .org /article/the-program-era-and-the-mainly-white-room/. 113. See, for example, Bergvall’s coeditorship of Caroline Bergvall, Laynie Browne, Teresa Carmody, and Vanessa Place, eds., I’ll Drown My Book: Conceptual Writing by Women (Los Angeles: Les Figues, 2012).

5. COPY RIGHTS 1. Interrupt 3, Brown University, Providence, RI, March 12–15, 2015, accessed February 10, 2017, http://www.irq3.interrupt.xyz. 2. Jillian Steinhauer, “Kenneth Goldsmith Remixes Michael Brown Autopsy Report as Poetry,” Hyperallergic, March 16, 2015, http://hyperallergic.com/190954 / kenneth-goldsmith-remixes-michael-brown-autopsy-report-as-poetry ; Alec Wilkinson, “Something Borrowed: Kenneth Goldsmith’s Poetry Elevates Copying to an Art, but Did He Go Too Far?,” New Yorker, October 5, 2015, http://www .newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/05/something-borrowed-wilkinson. 3. Mongrel Coalition Against Gringpo, “The Mongrel Coalition Against Gringpo Responds to the Links Between Conceptual Art and Conceptual Poetry,” communiqué posted by Lucas de Lima, Montevidayo, January 22, 2015, http://monte vidayo .com /2015 /01 /the -mongrel - coalition -against-gringpo -responds -to -the -links-between-conceptual-art-and-conceptual-poetry. 4. Mongrel Coalition Against Gringpo, Gringpo.com, snapshot of the webpage on February 3, 2015, captured at Archive.is, http://archive.is/S93AF. 5. The earliest page capture of Place’s Twitter feed on the Wayback Machine is from October  30, 2013. Vanessa Place, @VanessaPlace, Internet Archive Wayback Machine, accessed February 3, 2017, http://web.archive.org /web/20131030235805/ https://twitter.com/VanessaPlace. A privately archived image from December 20, 2012, shows Place was already using the combination of images a year earlier. Place sourced her banner image from Jemima’s Wedding Day: Cake Walk (1899), African American Sheet Music, Brown Digital Repository, Brown University Library, Providence, RI, https://repository.library.brown.edu /studio/item /bdr: 22147. 6. The petition was launched around May  12 by Timothy Volpert. By May  18 the petition had around two thousand signatures and the AWP announced Place’s removal. Timothy Volpert, “Remove Vanessa Place from the AWP Los Angeles Conference Committee,” Change.org, accessed February  10, 2017, https://www .change.org /p/association-of-writers-and-writing-conferences-remove-vanessa -place-from-the-awp-los-angeles-conference-committee; Timothy Volpert, “Petition Update: It Worked,” Change.org, May 18, 2015, https://www.change.org /p

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/association - of-writers -and -writing- conferences -remove -vanessa -place -from -the-awp-los-angeles-conference-committee/u/10802081. “After initially deciding to keep Place on the schedule, mass dropouts (for various cited reasons) led the BPC [Berkeley Poetry Conference] organizers to cancel the conference and plan a new conference entitled ‘Crosstalk, Color, Composition.’ ” Kim Calder, “The Denunciation of Vanessa Place,” Los Angeles Review of Books, June 14, 2015, https://lareviewofbooks.org /article/the-denunciation-of-vanessa-place/. 7. For example, Scott Martelle, “Vanessa Place’s Gone with the Wind Tweets: Artistic Expression or Racism?,” Los Angeles Times, May 19, 2015, http://www.latimes .com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-a-twitter-art-racism-20150519-story.html; Alison Flood, “US Poet Defends Reading of Michael Brown Autopsy Report as a Poem,” Guardian, March  17, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/17/ michael-brown-autopsy-report-poem-kenneth-goldsmith; Edward Helmore, “Gone with the Wind Tweeter Says She Is Being Shunned by US Arts Institutions,” Guardian, June  25, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jun/25/gone -with-the-wind-tweeter-shunned-arts-institutions-vanessa-place; Jason Guriel, “A Poet Turned Michael Brown’s Autopsy Report Into Click-Bait as Performance Art,” New Republic, March 25, 2015, https://newrepublic.com/article/121364/how -should-we-think-about-kenneth-goldsmiths-poetic-remixes; Priscilla Frank, “What Happened When a White Male Poet Read Michael Brown’s Autopsy as Poetry,” Huffington Post, March 20, 2015, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03 /17/kenneth-goldsmith-michael-brown_n_6880996.html; Wilkinson, “Something Borrowed.” 8. Edward Kamau Brathwaite, The Development of Creole Society in Jamaica, 1770– 1820 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971), 300. 9. Edward Kamau Brathwaite, lecture and reading, International Poetry Forum 1987, Pittsburgh, February  10, PennSound, 45:43, http://media.sas.upenn.edu /pennsound /authors/Brathwaite /Brathwaite -Kamau_Intl-Poetry-Forum_Pitts _ Feb-10–1987.mp3, 10:18–10:22. 10. Chris Chen and Tim Kreiner, “Free Speech, Minstrelsy, and the Avant-Garde,” Los Angeles Review of Books, December  10, 2015, https://lareviewofbooks.org /article/free-speech-minstrelsy-and-the-avant-garde. 11. For the aesthetics-politics dichotomy, see, for example, Aaron Kunin’s claim that “when we judge a work of art, we should judge its aesthetics, and the introduction of other values is a way of devaluing aesthetics.” Aaron Kunin, “Would Vanessa Place Be a Better Poet If She Had Better Opinions?,” Nonsite, September 26, 2015, http://nonsite.org /article/would-vanessa-place-be-a-better -poet-if-she-had-better- opinions. For the avant-garde–identity politics and form-content dichotomies, see, among others, Chris Chen and Kreiner, “Free Speech, Minstrelsy, and the Avant- Garde,” which attacks the treatment of race as content in conceptual writing. For discussions that characterize the debate as being about the ownership of racial identity, even as the authors take opposing views of the right to appropriate that identity, see Ken Chen, “Authenticity Obsession, or Conceptualism as Minstrel Show,” Asian American Writers’ Workshop, June  11, 2015, http://aaww.org /authenticity- obsession; and Walter Benn Michaels, “The Myth of ‘Cultural Appropriation,’ ” Communists in Situ,

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July 5, 2017, https://cominsitu .wordpress .com /2017/07/05/the-myth- of-cultural -appropriation. 12. On the role of “user-generated content online” in the rise of “prosumer capitalism,” see George Ritzer and Nathan Jurgenson, “Production, Consumption, Prosumption: The Nature of Capitalism in the Age of the Digital ‘Prosumer,’ ” Journal of Consumer Culture 10, no. 1 (2010): 13–36. 13. See the Mongrel Coalition’s own complaint about “clearly marked racialized and gendered divisions” in a piece published in Jacket2 in January 2015. According to the Mongrel Coalition, in this piece white conceptual writers were said to be “engaged with the process of ideas (and therefore abstraction and therefore elevated) while ‘others’ are fixated to the realm of the earthly crass and contingently precise.” Mongrel Coalition Against Gringpo, “The Mongrel Coalition Against Gringpo Offers Extended Thoughts on the Tattered Flag of White Conceptualism,” communiqué 2, posted by Lucas de Lima, Montevidayo, January 26, 2015, http://montevidayo.com /2015/01 /the -mongrel-coalition-against-gringpo -offers -extended-thoughts-on-the-tattered-flag-of-white-conceptualism. 14. Aldon Nielsen, for example, notes that the controversy had not so much to do with “the debate between process and thing,” as Stephanie Burt (writing as Stephen Burt) claimed, but more “to do with a long history of racial discourses in American literature.” Aldon Nielsen, “That Thing You Do,” American Literary History 28, no. 2 (2016): 303. 15. “Copying itself is neither good nor bad—it all depends on what we use it for.” Marcus Boon, In Praise of Copying (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010), 10. 16. Kenneth Goldsmith, “A New York Interview,” by Caroline Bergvall, Open Letter 12, no. 7 (2005): 97. 17. In 1993 the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) put its World Wide Web technology in the public domain. Between 1993 and 1997 the estimated number of websites worldwide increased from around one hundred to over one million. Internet Live Stats, accessed March 12, 2019, http://www.internetlivestats .com/total-number-of-websites. 18. Kenneth Goldsmith, No. 111 2.7.93–10.20.96 (Great Barrington, MA: The Figures, 1997). 19. On November 4, 1996, Kenneth Goldsmith sent a message to the Buffalo Poetics Listserv entitled “UbuWeb Visual & Concrete Site Open,” https://listserv.buffalo .edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=POETICS;c20ef0fd.9611. Archival webpages supplied by the author date back to late September and early October 1996. As early as September 29, 1996, Goldsmith sent a message to the listserv that included the URL http:// www.ubuweb.com. As this email indicates, Goldsmith at that time was also involved in updating the pages of the Electronic Poetry Center at Buffalo. https:// listserv.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=POETICS;6b340d60.9609. The EPC had been launched in July  1994. See the announcement here: https://listserv.buffalo.edu /cgi-bin/wa?A2=POETICS;505b720b.9407. 20. Alan Liu, The Laws of Cool: Knowledge Work and the Culture of Information (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 263. 21. Stewart Brand, “ ‘Keep Designing’: How the Information Economy Is Being Created and Shaped by the Hacker Ethic,” Whole Earth Review, May 1985, 49. On the

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uptake of Brand’s slogan and its relationship to cyberlibertarian ideology, see Fred Turner, “How Digital Technology Found Utopian Ideology: Lessons from the First Hackers’ Conference,” in Critical Cyberculture Studies, ed. David Silver and Adrienne Massanari (New York: New York University Press, 2006), 257–69. 22. Kenneth Goldsmith, “UbuWeb Wants to Be Free,” Open Letter 10, no.  9 (Fall 2001), archived at the Electronic Poetry Center, http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors /goldsmith/ubuweb.html. 23. Kenneth Goldsmith, “UbuWeb,” interview by Anderes Kino, Cargo, October 12, 2009, http://www.cargo -film.de/anderes/ubuweb. Goldsmith uses exactly the same phrases in his private correspondence with copyright holders; for example, Kenneth Goldsmith to Takehisa Kosugi, email, August  5, 2011 (in the author’s possession). 24. Kenneth Goldsmith, “Kenneth Goldsmith Talks to Nadja Romain,” Tank 7, no.  2 (2011), archived at the Electronic Poetry Center, accessed December  14, 2018, http:// writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/goldsmith/Tank-Magazine_Goldsmith-Interview.pdf. 25. Boon, In Praise of Copying, 44. 26. Paul  K. Saint-Amour, The Copywrights: Intellectual Property and the Literary Imagination (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003), 32. Saint-Amour here cites a similarly framed nineteenth-century debate over a copyright bill in the British Parliament, as analyzed in Chris R. Vanden Bossche, “The Value of Literature: Representations of Print Culture in the Copyright Debate of 1837–42,” Victorian Studies 38 (1994): 41–68. 27. Saint-Amour, Copywrights, 33. 28. Kenneth Goldsmith, in Charles Bernstein, “Why PennSound Went Dark on January  18, 2012,” Jacket2, January  17, 2012, http://jacket2.org /commentary/why -pennsound-going-dark-today. 29. “Wikipedia Blackout: 11 Huge Sites Protest SOPA, PIPA on January 18,” Huffington Post, January  18, 2012, http://www.huffingtonpost.com /2012/01 /17/wikipe dia-blackout_n_1212096.html; Ramona Emerson, “Mark Zuckerberg: ‘Facebook Opposes SOPA and PIPA,’ ” Huffington Post, January 18, 2012, http://www.huffing tonpost.com/2012/01/18/mark-zuckerberg-sopa_n_1214090.html. 30. Scott Cleland, “The Real Reasons Google Killed SOPA/PIPA,” Forbes, January 24, 2012, https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottcleland/2012/01/24/the-real-reasons-google -killed-sopapipa. 31. Jacques Attali, Noise: The Political Economy of Music, trans. Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985), 87–148. 32. Kenneth Goldsmith, “My Career in Poetry, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Institution,” Enclave Review (Spring 2011): 7–9. 33. Marjorie Perloff, Differentials: Poetry, Poetics, Pedagogy (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2004), 192. 34. Michael Golston approvingly cites Robert Fitterman and Vanessa Place’s assertion that “conceptual writing is allegorical writing.” Robert Fitterman and Vanessa Place, Notes on Conceptualisms (Brooklyn, NY: Ugly Duckling, 2009), 13; Michael Golston, Poetic Machinations: Allegory, Surrealism, and Postmodern Poetic Form (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015), 187. 35. Sianne Ngai, “Stuplimity: Shock and Boredom in Twentieth-Century Aesthetics,” Postmodern Culture 10, no. 2 (2000), http://muse.jhu.edu/article/27722.

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36. Kenneth Goldsmith, Day (Great Barrington, MA: The Figures, 2003); Kenneth Goldsmith, Soliloquy (1997; New York: Granary Books, 2001); Goldsmith, No. 111. On Goldsmith’s Printing Out the Internet (2013), see Jacob Edmond, “Archive of the Now,” in Futures of Comparative Literature: ACLA State of the Discipline Report, ed. Ursula K. Heise (London: Routledge, 2017), 241. 37. Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 1999), 207. 38. Craig Dworkin, “Zero Kerning,” Open Letter 12, no. 7 (2005): 10–20. 39. Kenneth Goldsmith, “Kenneth Goldsmith Sings Theory,” PennSound, http:// writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x /Goldsmith.php. 40. Kenneth Goldsmith, “Kenneth Goldsmith Sings Walter Benjamin,” PennSound, 31:03, http://media.sas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/Goldsmith/Theory/Kenneth -Goldsmith-Sings-Benjamin_WFMU_2007.mp3. 41. Kenneth Goldsmith, Capital (London: Verso, 2015); Benjamin, Arcades Project, 3. 42. Benjamin, Arcades Project, 211. 43. Benjamin, 211. 44. Mitchell Whitelaw, “Art Against Information: Case Studies in Data Practice,” Fibreculture Journal 11 (2008), http://eleven.fibreculturejournal.org /fcj-067-art -against-information-case-studies-in-data-practice; Paul Stephens, The Poetics of Information Overload: From Gertrude Stein to Conceptual Writing (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015), 2. 45. Goldsmith, Soliloquy, 328. 46. James Joyce, Ulysses (1922; London: Penguin, 1992), 929, 930. 47. Kenneth Goldsmith, Fidget (Toronto: Coach House, 2000). 48. Nancy Armstrong, “Modernism’s Iconophobia and What It Did to Gender,” Modernism/modernity 5, no. 2 (1998): 67. 49. Armstrong, “Modernism’s Iconophobia,” 68–69. 50. Christopher Schmidt, “The Waste-Management Poetics of Kenneth Goldsmith,” SubStance 37, no. 2 (2008): 37. 51. Golston, Poetic Machinations, 187. While taking a far more critical line, the Mongrel Coalition also describes Goldsmith allegorically as the “GRINGPO TROLL KENNETH OF THE HOUSES WHITE.” Mongrel Coalition Against Gringpo, “Verso Marketing Assistance,” Drunken Boat 22 (Summer 2015), accessed February 10, 2017, http://www.drunkenboat.com/db22/mongrel-coalition/verso-marketing-assistance. 52. Jennifer Ashton, “Labor and the Lyric: The Politics of Self-Expression in Contemporary American Poetry,” American Literary History 25, no. 1 (2013): 219. 53. Goldsmith, Soliloquy, 273. 54. Kenneth Goldsmith, Uncreative Writing: Managing Language in the Digital Age (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), 84, 85. 55. Roland Barthes, Image, Music, Text, trans. Stephen Heath (London: Fontana, 1977), 146; Roland Barthes, S/Z, trans. Richard Miller (London: Cape, 1975), 6. 56. Goldsmith, Day; Kenneth Goldsmith, Traffic (Los Angeles: Make Now, 2007); Kenneth Goldsmith, The Weather (Los Angeles: Make Now, 2005). 57. Dorothy J. Wang, Thinking Its Presence: Form, Race, and Subjectivity in Contemporary Asian American Poetry (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014), 15. Cathy Park Hong’s influential essay draws on Wang’s analysis. Hong, “Delusions of Whiteness in the Avant-Garde,” Lana Turner 7, November 3, 2014, http://www

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.lanaturnerjournal.com, archived at Arcade, http://arcade.stanford.edu/content /delusions-whiteness-avant-garde. 58. For a discussion of Goldsmith’s conflation of subjectivity and identity and Wang’s and Hong’s consequent criticisms, see David Kaufmann, Reading Uncreative Writing: Conceptualism, Expression, and the Lyric (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave, 2017), 74–75. 59. Cheryl I. Harris, “Whiteness as Property,” Harvard Law Review 106, no. 8 (1993): 1707–91. 60. Alan Liu describes this shift as the rise of the “cool.” Liu, Laws of Cool, 3. Goldsmith’s presentation of avant-garde works on UbuWeb reflects this ethos of the cool. Here works that were radically avant-garde in their various geographical and historical contexts, from Zurich Dada to Futurism, become part of a lowaffect ethos of cool, signaled by UbuWeb’s minimalist, ad-free design. Brian Reed also connects Liu’s account of the cool and knowledge work to similar poetic practices in Reed, Nobody’s Business: Twenty-First Century Avant-Garde Poetics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013). 61. Sianne Ngai, Our Aesthetic Categories: Zany, Cute, Interesting (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015), 143–73. 62. Vanessa Place, “Conceptual Gestures: Vanessa Place Roundtable at Birkbeck College 24 September 2011,” Vimeo, 88:36, https://vimeo.com/29671500, 51:20–51:32. 63. Vanessa Place, La Medusa (Tuscaloosa, AL: FC2, 2008). 64. Place, 251–53. The extract is presented as a conceptual poem in Vanessa Place, “Vanessa Place on Pussy,” YouTube, video, 4:11, posted February 20, 2010, https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifgDcYGQvD4. 65. Vanessa Place, Tragodía 1: Statement of Facts (Los Angeles: Blanc Press, 2010). 66. See Juliana Spahr’s questioning of whether Statement of Facts “leads us to think of rape as something poor people, mainly Latinos, do” and so gives “false and racist/classist information” by suggesting “things that are untrue or damaging about poor Latinos.” Juliana Spahr, comments on “Response from Marjorie Perloff,” Too Much Work and Still to Be Poets, blog of Stephanie Young, June 18–19, 2010, http://could-be-otherwise.blogspot.com/2010/06/response-from-marjorie -perloff.html. 67. Vanessa Place, Echo (Calgary: No Press, 2011), CD. The text of this audio recording is available online at http://www.academia.edu/2778724/ECHO. 68. Saidiya Hartman, Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 21. 69. Kenneth Goldsmith, Seven American Deaths and Disasters (New York: Power House, 2013). 70. Mongrel Coalition, “Mongrel Coalition Against Gringpo Responds”; Mongrel Coalition, “Mongrel Coalition Against Gringpo Offers Extended Thoughts.” In his initial statement following the controversy, Goldsmith claimed that his reading of the Michael Brown autopsy was “in the tradition of my previous book Seven American Deaths and Disasters.” Kenneth Goldsmith, Facebook post, March  15, 2015, cited in Frank, “What Happened.” Though Goldsmith later deleted the post, substantial parts of Goldsmith’s statement were widely quoted online and in the press at the time; for another substantial quotation, see Flood, “US Poet Defends Reading.”

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71. Hartman, Scenes of Subjection, 19, 20. For an application of Hartman’s analysis to Goldsmith, see Chris Chen and Kreiner, “Free Speech, Minstrelsy, and the Avant-Garde.” 72. John Keene, “On Vanessa Place, Gone with the Wind, and the Limit Point of Certain Conceptual Aesthetics,” J’s Theater, May 18, 2015, http://jstheater.blogspot .com/2015/05/on-vanessa-place-gone-with-wind-and.html. 73. Goldsmith, cited in Steinhauer, “Kenneth Goldsmith Remixes.” 74. Hartman, Scenes of Subjection, 20, 21. 75. Vanessa Place, “An Interview in Paris,” by Marion Charret-Del Bove and Françoise Palleau-Papin, Transatlantica: Revue d’études américaines 1 (2012): 13. 76. Vanessa Place, “Artist’s Statement: Gone with the Wind @Vanessa Place,” originally published on Vanessa Place’s Facebook page on May 18, 2015, but no longer available there. A copy that remains available was published the following day on Genius, May  19, 2015, https://genius.com/Vanessa-place-artists-statement-gone -with-the-wind-vanessaplace-annotated. 77. Place, “An Interview in Paris,” 13. 78. In 2011 Poetry magazine’s reported circulation was 26,000, and it won the award for best US literary magazine. Christopher Borrelli, “Poetry Magazine WellVersed in Criticism,” Chicago Tribune, June 20, 2011, http://articles.chicagotribune .com/2011–06–20/entertainment/ct-ent-0621-focus-poetry-foundation-20110620_1 _poetry-foundation-poetry-magazine-ruth-lilly. 79. Vanessa Place, “Miss Scarlett,” Poetry 194, no. 4 (2009): 339–40. 80. Vanessa Place, “The Discourse of the Slave,” paper presented at Poetics Plus, a Poetics Program production of the Department of English, State University of New York at Buffalo, February 2, 2010; Place, “An Interview in Paris,” 13; Place, “Artist’s Statement: Gone with the Wind @Vanessa Place.” Place had already expressed her interest in blackface and rewriting Gone with the Wind in 2008. Vanessa Place, “Reading for LA-Lit,” March 16, 2008, PennSound, http://media .sas .upenn .edu /pennsound /groups /LA-Lit /Place -Vanessa_LA-Lit_20_PartB _ Betalevel_LA_3–16–2008.mp3. 81. Place’s first published iteration of Mitchell’s text appeared in the spring 2009 edition of Drunken Boat (though the earliest archived version of this issue on the Wayback Machine is dated July 10, 2009). Vanessa Place, “Gone with the Wind,” Drunken Boat 10 (Spring 2009), http://www.drunkenboat.com/db10/06fic/place /gone.html. Though this versioning of Gone with the Wind was probably published slightly earlier than the July–August issue of Poetry, in which “Miss Scarlett” appeared, it is still possible that the correspondence with Poetry predates Place’s creation of the Drunken Boat piece. Place’s Gone with the Wind Twitter feed dates from August  2009, the joining date listed for her Twitter handle at https://twitter.com/VanessaPlace. 82. Susan Herring, Kirk Job-Sluder, Rebecca Scheckler, and Sasha Barab, “Searching for Safety Online: Managing ‘Trolling’ in a Feminist Forum,” Information Society 18 (2002): 372. 83. “The majority of trolls on the English-speaking web are . . . white, male and somewhat privileged.” Whitney Phillips, “What an Academic Who Wrote Her Dissertation on Trolls Thinks of Violentacrez,” Atlantic, October 15, 2012, https:// www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/10/what-an-academic-who-wrote

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-her-dissertation-on-trolls-thinks-of-violentacrez/263631. See also Karla Mantilla, “Gendertrolling: Misogyny Adapts to New Media,” Feminist Studies 39, no. 2 (2013): 563–70. 84. Whitney Phillips, This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: Mapping the Relationship Between Online Trolling and Mainstream Culture (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2015), 164. 85. Place, “Artist’s Statement: Gone with the Wind @Vanessa Place.” 86. Claudia Rankine, “Open Letter: A Dialogue on Race and Poetry,” Poets.org, February  15, 2011, https://www.poets.org /poetsorg /text/open-letter-dialogue-race -and-poetry. 87. On this problem in Place’s work, see also Kaufmann, Reading Uncreative Writing, 91–93. 88. A similar point is made in Kaufmann, 92. 89. Tony Hoagland, “Dear Claudia: A Letter in Response,” Poets.org, March 15, 2011, https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/dear-claudia-letter-response. Goldsmith cited in Flood, “US Poet Defends Reading.” 90. Casey Llewellyn, “What We Could Do with Writing,” in The Racial Imaginary: Writers on Race in the Life of the Mind, ed. Claudia Rankine, Beth Loffreda, and Max King Cap (Albany, NY: Fence, 2015), 45. 91. Place, “An Interview in Paris,” 13. 92. Vanessa Place, “A Poetics of Radical Evil,” Lana Turner: A Journal of Poetry and Opinion 3 (2010): 97–99. 93. Place, Echo. 94. Herring et al., “Searching for Safety Online,” 381. 95. Place, “Artist’s Statement: Gone with the Wind @Vanessa Place.” 96. Compare the Wayback Machine snapshots of Place’s Twitter feed from June 16, 2015 (https://web.archive.org/web/20150619225130/https:/twitter.com/VanessaPlace) and December  5, 2015 (https://web.archive.org /web/20151205020240/https://twit ter.com/VanessaPlace). 97. Marjorie Perloff, quoted in Jen Hofer, “If You Hear Something Say Something, or If You’re Not at the Table You’re on the Menu,” Entropy, December 18, 2015, https: //entropymag.org /if-you-hear-something-say-something-or-if-youre-not-at-the -table-youre-on-the-menu/; Ron Silliman, “Je suis Vanessa,” Silliman’s Blog, May 22, 2015, http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/2015/05/normal-0-false-false-false-en-us-x -none_22.html. 98. Herring et al., “Searching for Safety Online,” 381. 99. National Coalition Against Censorship, “Managing Controversy: Vanessa Place, Race and Gone with the Wind,” NCAC, July  1, 2015, http://ncac.org /incident /managing-controversy-vanessa-place-race-and-gone-with-the-wind. 100. Place, “Discourse of the Slave.” 101. Place, “Miss Scarlett,” 339. 102. Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind (1936; New York: Scribner, 1996), 344. 103. Eric Lott, Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 6. 104. Lott, Love and Theft, 7; Eric Lott, Black Mirror: The Cultural Contradictions of American Racism (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2017). 105. Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, 341.

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106. Brian  M. Reed, “In Other Words: Postmillennial Poetry and Redirected Language,” Contemporary Literature 52, no. 4 (2011): 758. 107. Vanessa Place, “Vanessa Place Performs ‘White Out of Gone with the Wind,’ ” performed at the Greenwich Cross-Genre Festival, London, July 2010, YouTube, video, 2:26, posted December  10, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9j As7RW9Ls. 108. Reed, “In Other Words,” 756. 109. Hartman, Scenes of Subjection, 31–32. 110. For example, Place, Echo; Vanessa Place, “Poetry and the Conceptualist Period,” interview by Andrea Quaid, Bomblog, December 29, 2013, https://bombmagazine .org /articles/vanessa-place-poetry-and-the-conceptualist-period. 111. Vanessa Place, “Artist’s Statement,” Drunken Boat 10 (Spring 2009), http://www .drunkenboat.com/db10/06fic/place/statement.html. 112. Kevin K. Gaines, Uplifting the Race: Black Leadership, Politics, and Culture in the Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 67. 113. Vanessa Place, interview by Paige  K. Bradley, Artforum, April  4, 2017, https:// www.artforum .com /interviews /vanessa -place - on -her -work-with -rape -jokes -67539. 114. Reed, “In Other Words,” 758–59. 115. Hartman, Scenes of Subjection, 20. 116. David Kaufmann, “Bullshit and Interest: Casing Vanessa Place,” Postmodern Culture 24, no.  2 (January  2014), http://www.pomoculture.org /2016/09/25 /bullshit-and-interest-casing-vanessa-place. 117. Alison Hearn, “ ‘Meat, Mask, Burden’: Probing the Contours of the Branded ‘Self,’ ” Journal of Consumer Culture 8, no. 2 (2008): 206. 118. Kaufmann, “Bullshit and Interest.” 119. Kaufmann, Reading Uncreative Writing, 90. 120. Lillian-Yvonne Bertram, “The Whitest Boy Alive: Witnessing Kenneth Goldsmith,” Poetry Foundation, May  18, 2015, https://www.poetryfoundation.org /harriet/2015/05/the-whitest-boy-alive-witnessing-kenneth-goldsmith; Chris Chen and Kreiner, “Free Speech, Minstrelsy, and the Avant-Garde”; Ken Chen, “Authenticity Obsession.” 121. Vanessa Place, “(1957) THE BLACK AND WHITE MINSTREL SHOW (1978),” Electronic Poetry Center, last modified August  24, 2010, http://writing.upenn .edu/epc/authors/place/Place_The_Black_and_White_Minstrel_Show.pdf. 122. For example, Ken Chen, “Authenticity Obsession.” 123. Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, trans. Charles Lam Markmann (New York: Grove, 1967), 220n8. 124. E. K. Brathwaite, Development of Creole Society in Jamaica, 308. 125. Place, Echo. 126. Jacques Lacan, Écrits: The First Complete Edition in English, trans. Bruce Fink (New York: Norton, 2006), 414. See also Jonathan E. Abel, “Personification and a Trope of Writing: Nakano Shigeharu’s ‘Language of Slaves,’ ” Comparative Literature 65, no. 4 (2013): 480. Place cites Lacan extensively in her essays; see, for example, Place, Echo; Place, “Poetics of Radical Evil.” On Lacan in Place’s writings, see also Kaufmann, Reading Uncreative Writing, 83. 127. For a similar interpretation of Place, see Kaufmann, Reading Uncreative Writing, 87.

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128. John Cayley and Daniel C. Howe, “How It Is” in Common Tongues: Cited from the Commons of Digitally Inscribed Writing (Providence, RI: NLLF, 2012), 4. 129. Bernard Stiegler, Technics and Time, 1: The Fault of Epimetheus, trans. Richard Beardsworth and George Collins (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), 257. 130. Bernard Stiegler, “Memory,” in Critical Terms for Media Studies, ed. W.  J.  T. Mitchell and Mark B. N. Hansen (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), 77. 131. Stiegler, 71. 132. Mongrel Coalition Against Gringpo, “The Mongrel Coalition Killed Conceptualism,” Internet Archive Wayback Machine, snapshot of Gringpo.com from March 16, 2015, https://web.archive.org /web/20150316210242/gringpo.com. 133. Vanessa Place, “Poetry Is Dead, I Killed It: An Essay by Vanessa Place,” Poetry Foundation, April  5, 2012, https://www.poetryfoundation.org /harriet/2012/04 /poetry-is-dead-i-killed-it/. The quotation “Vanessa Place killed poetry,” attributed to an unknown Twitter user, recurs in Place’s biographical notes from 2011 onward; for example, Vanessa Place, biographical note, &Now2011: Tomorrowland Forever! Festival Program, University of California, San Diego, October 13– 15, 2011, https://elmcip.net/sites/default/files/files/attachments/event/andnowfestival-program-2011.pdf, 32; Vanessa Place, “What’s So Stupid About Poetry: An Introduction to Conceptual Writing,” Covertext, November 29, 2013, http://www .covertext.org /news/an-introduction-to-conceptual-writing. 134. Mongrel Coalition Against Gringpo, “The Best Conceptual Poem of the Year: Interrupting the Maintenance of White Supremacy,” audio file, Internet Archive Wayback Machine, snapshot of Gringpo.com from April 5, 2015, https://web.archive .org/web/20150405002803/http://gringpo.com; the file appears underneath the title “MCAG Presents the Best Conceptual Poem of the Year: Interrupting the Maintenance of White Supremacy.” One of the organizers confirms that Brown University’s Media Services recorded Interrupt 3 events but says that these recordings did not generally include the discussion that followed and that they were, in any case, never streamed or posted online. John Cayley, emails to the author, May 28 and June 2, 2017. The recording of the discussion used by the Mongrel Coalition was most likely made informally by a member of the audience. The Mongrel Coalition audio file samples from a number of YouTube videos, including Alexis Templeton, “Ferguson October Speeches: I’ve Spent More Time in Jail than Darren Wilson,” YouTube, video, 1:50, posted October  23, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch ?v=TapYLWheHW4; Suhaad Atib, “Ferguson October Speeches: Black Liberation Will Lead to Liberation for All,” YouTube, video, 2:16, posted October 21, 2014, https: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4HjSLRdJ4Y; Patrisse Cullors, “We Have a Duty to Fight for Freedom,” YouTube, video, 1:24, posted January  25, 2015, https://www .youtube.com/watch?v=PuYyVhV3sxg; Patrisse Cullors, “Ferguson October Speeches: We Stand with All Victims of Police Terror,” YouTube, video, 1:55, posted October  21, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxV8IW47Zlw; Killer Mike, “Killer Mike’s Pre-show Ferguson Grand Jury Speech,” YouTube, video, 7:33, posted November 24, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQs7CWKHM9w#t=251. 135. Cogan Schneler, “Ferguson Protests Give New Meaning to ‘Hands Up’ Sign,” USA Today, August 13, 2014, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08 /13/ferguson-protests-hands-up/14010683. The images in the Mongrel Coalition

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montage include a photograph of a “hands up, don’t shoot” protest at Howard University that went viral at this time. Jolie Lee, “Hands Up: Howard U. Photo of Students in Solidarity Goes Viral,” USA Today, August 14, 2014, https:// www.usatoday.com /story /news /nation -now /2014 /08 /14 /hands -up -ferguson -michael-brown-howard-brown/14044865. 136. Mongrel Coalition Against Gringpo, “MCAG Presents the Best Conceptual Poem of the Year: Interrupting the Maintenance of White Supremacy,” Internet Archive Wayback Machine, snapshot of Gringpo.com from April 5, 2015, https:// web.archive.org /web/20150405002803/http://gringpo.com. 137. Audre Lorde, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” in Feminist Postcolonial Theory: A Reader, ed. Reina Lewis and Sara Mills (New York: Routledge, 2003), 25. 138. On Lorde’s speech as a response to Beauvoir, see Lester C. Olson, “The Personal, the Political, and Others: Audre Lorde Denouncing ‘The Second Sex Conference,’ ” Philosophy and Rhetoric 33, no. 3 (2000): 259–85. 139. Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, trans. Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier (New York: Vintage, 2011), 74. 140. Jessica Benjamin, “The Bonds of Love: Rational Violence and Erotic Domination,” Feminist Studies 6, no. 1 (1980): 144–74. 141. Lorde, “Master’s Tools,” 27. 142. Allison Weir, Sacrificial Logics: Feminist Theory and the Critique of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1996); Beauvoir, Second Sex, 74–75; Vanessa Place, Boycott (New York: Ugly Duckling, 2013). 143. Lorde, “Master’s Tools,” 26. 144. Goldsmith, “My Career in Poetry,” 9. 145. Abel, “Personification,” 478. 146. Georg W. F. Hegel, Ästhetik: Mit Einem Einführenden Essay, vol. 1, Klassisches erbe aus Philosophie und Geschichte, ed. György Lukács (Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 1955), 376; Paul de Man, “Dialogue and Dialogism,” Poetics Today 4, no. 1 (1983): 101. 147. Mongrel Coalition, “MCAG Presents.” 148. Mongrel Coalition, “Best Conceptual Poem,” 1:53–2:08. 149. Mongrel Coalition, 1:46–1:52. 150. LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), “ ‘The Revolutionary Theatre,’ Liberator, July 1965,” National Humanities Center, accessed February  24, 2017, nationalhumanitiescenter.org /pds/maai3/protest/text12/barakatheatre.pdf. 151. Mongrel Coalition, “Best Conceptual Poem,” 2:09–2:12; Templeton, “Ferguson October Speeches,” 1:10–1:15. 152. Steinhauer, “Kenneth Goldsmith Remixes”; Mongrel Coalition, “Best Conceptual Poem,” 0:39–0:42, 1:15–1:19. 153. Mongrel Coalition, “Best Conceptual Poem,” 1:25–1:40. 154. Hartman, Scenes of Subjection, 19. 155. Ken Chen, “Authenticity Obsession”; Chris Chen and Kreiner, “Free Speech, Minstrelsy, and the Avant-Garde.” 156. Mongrel Coalition, “Best Conceptual Poem,” 2:46–2:53. The Irish accent suggests that the speaker is probably Mairéad Byrne, who, along with Ian Hatcher and Maria Damon, is one of the three named respondents to Goldsmith’s reading listed in the Interrupt 3 schedule. “Schedule,” Interrupt 3: A Discussion Forum

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and Studio for New Forms of Language Art, accessed June 26, 2017, http://www .irq3.interrupt.xyz/?page_id=14. 157. Hartman, Scenes of Subjection, 19. 158. Goldsmith, cited in Steinhauer, “Kenneth Goldsmith Remixes.” 159. Mongrel Coalition, “Best Conceptual Poem,” 4:12–4:19, 3:30–3:45. 160. Mongrel Coalition, 6:26–7:36. 161. Mongrel Coalition, 7:36–7:40. 162. Mongrel Coalition, 2:37–2:42. 163. Kunin, “Would Vanessa Place Be a Better Poet.” On the partisan US judiciary, see, for example, Alan Dershowitz, Supreme Injustice: How the High Court Hijacked Election 2000 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). 164. Mongrel Coalition, “Best Conceptual Poem,” 4:20–4:40, 5:01–5:23. 165. Assata Shakur, “July 4th Address” (1973), in Imprisoned Intellectuals: America’s Political Prisoners Write on Life, Liberation, and Rebellion, ed. Joy James (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003), 119. Cullors’s wording in several places differs slightly from Assata’s July  4 address. “The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains.” Karl Marx and Frederick [Friedrich] Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), ed. Frederick [Friedrich] Engels, 5th  ed. (London: William Reeves, 1888), 31. The lines were subsequently popularized as the catchcry “You have nothing to lose but your chains!” 166. Mongrel Coalition, “MCAG Presents.” 167. Mongrel Coalition, “Best Conceptual Poem,” 8:42–8:51. 168. W. H. Auden, “Spain 1937,” in The Collected Poetry of W. H. Auden (New York: Random House, 1945), 181–85. 169. Martin Luther King Jr., “Beyond Vietnam,” The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, accessed February  24, 2019, https://kinginstitute.stan ford.edu/king-papers/documents/beyond-vietnam. 170. Similarly, Ken Chen argues that “Documentary Poetics and Conceptual Poetry resemble each other in technique, but differ wildly in their politics.” Ken Chen, “Authenticity Obsession.” 171. Volpert, “Remove Vanessa Place”; National Coalition Against Censorship, “Managing Controversy.” 172. Nsenga K. Burton, “ ‘N—ger Cake’ Creator Is Black: So What?,” Root, April 19, 2012, http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2012/04/blackface_cake_so_what _if_creator_makode_aj_linde_is_black; Jamilah Lemieux, “When Art Goes Wrong: Black Women’s Pain Is Not a Prop,” Ebony, April  18, 2012, http://www .ebony.com/news-views/black-womens-pain-is-not-a-prop. 173. Jonathan Pitts-Wiley, “Taking the ‘Painful Cake’: Reconsidering the Swedish Ministry Art Nightmare,” Ebony, April  18, 2012, http://www.ebony.com/news -views/the-swedish-ministry-art-nightmare. 174. Mongrel Coalition, “Best Conceptual Poem,” 8:28–8:39. 175. Janet Lyon, Manifestoes: Provocations of the Modern (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999), 204–5. 176. Mongrel Coalition Against Gringpo, “The Ultimate Conceptualist Anthology,” Internet Poetry, May 6, 2015, http://internetpoetry.tumblr.com/post/118327556838. 177. Heriberto Yépez, “Vanessa Place Inc. y la Poética Mongrel-Nafta,” Venepoetics, May 23, 2015, http://venepoetics.blogspot.com/2015/05/vanessa-place-inc-y-la-poetica

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-mongrel.html, translation of Heriberto Yépez, “Vanessa Place Inc. y la Poética Mongrel-Nafta,” Archivo hache, May  23, 2015, http://archivohache.blogspot.com /2015/05/vanessa-place-inc-y-la-poetica-mongrel.html. 178. On the Latin American tradition of appropriative poetics and its relation to contemporary poetry in North America, see Rachel Galvin, “Poetry Is Theft,” Comparative Literature Studies 51, no. 1 (2014): 18–54.

6. CHINESE ROOMS 1. John R. Searle, “Minds, Brains, and Programs,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3 (1980): 417–57. 2. A. M. Turing, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” Mind 49, no. 236 (1950): 433–60. 3. Searle, “Minds, Brains, and Programs,” 417. 4. Searle, 420–21, 423. 5. Joan Retallack, “The Woman in the Chinese Room: A Prospective,” Iowa Review 26, no. 2 (1996): 162, 160. 6. Burton Hatlen, “Joan Retallack: A Philosopher Among the Poets, a Poet Among the Philosophers,” Contemporary Literature 42, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 371; Retallack, “The Woman in the Chinese Room,” 159. 7. John R. Searle, Minds, Brains and Science (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984), 32; Retallack, “The Woman in the Chinese Room,” 162. 8. Searle, Minds, Brains and Science, 32. 9. Rebecca  L. Walkowitz, Born Translated: The Contemporary Novel in an Age of World Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015), 4. 10. Plato, Phaedrus, trans. Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1995), 79–80. 11. Evelyn Tribble and Nicholas Keene, Cognitive Ecologies and the History of Remembering: Religion, Education and Memory in Early Modern England (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 2011), 76. 12. Georg W. F. Hegel, Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind, trans. William Wallace (Oxford: Clarendon, 1894), 81. Compare similar claims linking language and clarity of thought in the competition between European languages. Michael  D. Gordin, Scientific Babel: How Science Was Done Before and After Global English (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015), 17–18. 13. Eric Hayot, The Hypothetical Mandarin: Sympathy, Modernity, and Chinese Pain (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 8, 12. 14. Christopher Bush, Ideographic Modernism: China, Writing, Media (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 19; Andrea Bachner, Beyond Sinology: Chinese Writing and the Scripts of Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014), 165–66. 15. Fredric Jameson, “Postmodernism; or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism,” New Left Review 146 (July–August  1984): 73–75; Bob Perelman, “Parataxis and Narrative: The New Sentence in Theory and Practice,” American Literature 65, no. 2 (1993): 324n21. 16. Jameson, “Postmodernism,” 75, 91. 17. Stephen Owen, “What Is World Poetry? The Anxiety of Global Influence,” New Republic, November 19, 1990, 28–32.

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18. N. Katherine Hayles, How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 289. 19. Byung-Chul Han, Shanzhai: Deconstruction in Chinese, trans. Philippa Hurd (Boston: MIT Press, 2017), 77. 20. Han, 31. 21. Han, 5–6. 22. Jing Tsu, Sound and Script in Chinese Diaspora (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010), 15. 23. Hayot, Hypothetical Mandarin, 8; Tsu, Sound and Script, 65. 24. On linking value, see Bernard Cova, “Community and Consumption: Towards a Definition of the ‘Linking Value’ of Product or Services,” European Journal of Marketing 31 (1997): 297–316. 25. Barrett Watten, “Radical Particularity, Critical Regionalism, and the Resistance to Globalization,” paper presented at the Modernist Studies Association conference, Long Beach, CA, November 1, 2007, page archived at the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, captured April 4, 2013, http://web.archive.org /web/20130404 135650/http://www.english.wayne.edu/fac_pages/ewatten/posts/post42.html. 26. See Jameson’s argument that modernist texts exemplify the difficulty of “cognitive mapping” in the age of European imperialism. Fredric Jameson, “Cognitive Mapping,” in Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, ed. Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988), 349−50. 27. On the theory of distributed cognition and its application to digital networks, see James Hollan, Edwin Hutchins, and David Kirsh, “Distributed Cognition: Toward a New Foundation for Human-Computer Interaction Research,” ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction 7, no. 2 (2000): 174–96. 28. Walkowitz, Born Translated, 4. 29. Brandon Som, The Tribute Horse (Brooklyn, NY: Nightboat, 2014). 30. Brandon Som, “Sound Sews the Poem Together: A Conversation with Brandon Som on Heritage, Identity, and the Versatility of Language,” by Nim Holden, Ray Kearns, and Sarah Arnett, Interlochen Review (2016), http://www.interlochen review.org /brandon-som. 31. Chinese Poems of the Tang and Sung Dynasties, read by Lo Kung-Yuan, Folkways Records FL 9921, 1963, 33⅓ rpm; Lo Kung-Yuan, Nowhere Is My Home (Boston: Beacon, 1965). Som gives the source recording in his notes to the poem. Som, Tribute Horse, 95. 32. Som, Tribute Horse, 95. 33. Estelle T. Lau, Paper Families: Identity, Immigration Administration, and Chinese Exclusion (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006), 47–49. 34. Som, “Sound Sews the Poem.” 35. Oxford English Dictionary Online, s.v. “lipogram (n.).” 36. Stephanie Burt (writing as Stephen Burt), The Poem Is You: 60 Contemporary American Poems and How to Read Them (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2016), 358. 37. On Pound’s willful refusal to attend to the phonetic element in Chinese characters, see Haun Saussy, “Fenollosa Compounded: A Discrimination,” in The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry: A Critical Edition, by Ernest Fenollosa and Ezra Pound, ed. Haun Saussy, Jonathan Stalling, and Lucas Klein (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008), 1–40; Jonathan Stalling, Poetics of

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Emptiness: Transformations of Asian Thought in American Poetry (New York: Fordham University Press, 2010), 59–95. 38. Som, Tribute Horse, 75. 39. Som, 24, 28, 30. 40. Som notes that his grandfather gave up the name Ong in Som, “Sound Sews the Poem.” 41. Som, Tribute Horse, 75, 79, 78. 42. Som, 77, 78, 78, 77. 43. Som, 80. 44. Som, 78, 77. 45. Som, 75, 76, 77. 46. Som, 78, 79, 78. 47. Som, 68–69. 48. Som, 80. Som would have seen Li Bai’s poem in the original Chinese with a parallel Mandarin transliteration and English translation in the liner notes to Chinese Poems of the Tang. 49. Som, Tribute Horse, 77, 80, 76. 50. Burt, The Poem Is You, 358. 51. For example: “Too often, the works selected to represent cultural diversity are those that accept the model of representation assumed by the dominant culture in the first place.” Charles Bernstein, A Poetics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), 6. “To encourage this kind of writing in the name of ethnic diversity is to assume that the ‘marginalized’ have the right (perhaps even the duty) to use what would otherwise be considered well-worn clichés.” Marjorie Perloff, “Postmodernism / Fin de Siècle: The Prospects for Openness in a Decade of Closure,” Criticism 35, no. 2 (1993): 183–84. Illustrating Som’s engagement with such attacks, John Yau uses his review of The Tribute Horse to lambast the dichotomy between innovation and cultural identity drawn by Perloff, who supplied a blurb for Som’s book. John Yau, “Foreign Sounds or Sounds Foreign,” Hyperallergic, August 28, 2016, https://hyperallergic.com/319389/brandon-som-the-tribute-horse. Further adding to the confusion of the contested terrain that Som explores, Yau quotes a passage that he says comes from Perloff but that in fact is a (slightly misquoted) passage from the attack on Perloff’s dichotomizing of identity and innovation in Dorothy J. Wang, Thinking Its Presence: Form, Race, and Subjectivity in Contemporary Asian American Poetry (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014), 9. Despite the misattribution, the dichotomizing is real; for example, see Marjorie Perloff, “Presidential Address 2006: It Must Change,” PMLA 122, no.  3 (2007): 654; Marjorie Perloff, “ ‘Creative Writing’ Among the Disciplines,” MLA Newsletter 38, no. 1 (Spring 2006): 4, https://www.mla.org /content/download/2974/80250 /nl_spring06pdf.pdf. 52. Lao Touzi 侩⣜⫸, “Zhongguo Laji pai shige daibiaozuo shi shou: Zuopin yu dianping” ᷕ⚥✫⛦㳦孿㫴ẋ堐ἄ⋩椾: ἄ⑩ᶶ䁡孬, Shui shi wang kan 㯜孿仹↲ 1 (September  2003), https://sites.google.com/site/waterpoemss/Home/wp200309/06. Heather Inwood cites a BBS page, no longer live, as the original version of this online anthology. I adapt Inwood’s English translation of the poem and commentary here. Heather Inwood, Verse Going Viral: China’s New Media Scenes (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2014), 242.

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53. Inwood, Verse Going Viral, 63. 54. Inwood, 61. 55. Though widely cited (and not infrequently mocked) for its extreme brevity, Bei Dao’s “Life” is really only one part of a longer poem, entitled “Notes from the City of the Sun.” Bei Dao ⊿ⱃ, Bei Dao shi xuan ⊿ⱃ孿徱, 2nd ed. (Guangzhou: Xin shiji, 1987), 21–24; Bei Dao, The August Sleepwalker, trans. Bonnie McDougall (New York: New Directions, 1990), 31–32. On this point, see Bonnie McDougall, “A Poetry of Shadows: An Introduction to Bei Dao’s Poems,” in Notes from the City of the Sun, by Bei Dao (Ithaca, NY: Cornell East Asia Papers, 1983), 6. By the mid-1980s, McDougall could note that the “poem” had provoked several parodies. Bonnie McDougall, “Bei Dao’s Poetry: Revelation and Communication,” Modern Chinese Literature 1, no. 2 (Spring 1985): 230n15. 56. Maghiel van Crevel, Chinese Poetry in Times of Mind, Mayhem and Money (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 20; Maghiel van Crevel, “Rejective Poetry? Sound and Sense in Yi Sha,” in Text, Performance, and Gender in Chinese Literature and Music: Essays in Honor of Wilt Idema, ed. Maghiel Crevel, Tian Yuan Tan, and Michel Hockx (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 409. 57. Yi Sha Ẳ㱁, Tang Ⓒ (Melbourne: Yuanxi, 2004), 166–67. The poem was first published online in 2002. Heather Inwood, “Yi Sha: Running His Race in the ‘Ninth Lane,’ ” Chinese Literature Today 2, no. 2 (2012): 9. 58. Compare the somewhat analogous work by artist Qiu Zhijie 恙⽿㜘, Chongfu shuxie yi qian bian “Lanting xu” 慵⢵Ḏ⅁ᶨ⋫念˪℘ṕ⸷˫(1990–1995), in which the artist copied a famous calligraphic work out on the same sheet of paper to the point where the entire canvas was black. For documentation of the work, see http: //www.qiuzhijie.com/worksleibie/calligraphy/lanting.htm. 59. Lu Xun, “Preface to the First Collection of Short Stories, Call to Arms” and “A Madman’s Diary,” trans. Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, in The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Literature, ed. Joseph S. M. Lau and Howard Goldblatt, 2nd ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 6. 60. Lu Xun, 4. 61. Lu Xun, 5, 9. 62. Lu Xun, 5. 63. John Cage, A Year from Monday: New Lectures and Writings by John Cage (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1969), 134. 64. David Revill, The Roaring Silence: John Cage, A Life (New York: Arcade, 1992), 163–64. 65. Jonathan Stalling, Yingelishi: Sinophonic English Poetry and Poetics (Denver: Counterpath, 2011), 3. 66. Stalling, 47. 67. Stalling, 3. 68. Compare Jonathan Stalling, Grotto Heaven (Tucson: Chax, 2010), 14–16; and Stalling, Yingelishi, 25–31. 69. Stalling, Grotto Heaven, 24. 70. Stalling, Poetics of Emptiness. 71. Quoted in Stalling, Poetics of Emptiness, 1. 72. Stalling, Yingelishi, 52–53.

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73. One might compare Stalling’s fusion of the Chinese tradition with contemporary globalism to what Nick Admussen has termed the “evacuation of history” through which contemporary Chinese poet Ouyang Jianghe 㫸春㰇㱛 in his poem “Xuan guan” ㆠ㢢 connects “classical erudition” to “a process of emptying” and so “announces his decision to leave China’s past and move into a global present tense by cleansing himself of the language of that past.” Nick Admussen, Recite and Refuse: Contemporary Chinese Prose Poetry (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2016), 142–43. 74. R. John Williams, The Buddha in the Machine: Art, Technology, and the Meeting of East and West (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014), 218. 75. The combination of modern transportation, natural imagery, and East Asian poetics in Pound’s poem also relates to his engagement with another modern technology: photography. Bush, Ideographic Modernism, 65. Compare the association of the haiku in French modernist poetry with “the aesthetic values of modernism” and the machinery of war. Christopher Bush, “Wiping the Blade,” in “Approaches Between Asia and Latin America: A Critical Renga,” curated by Andrea Bachner and Christopher Bush, Verge 3, no. 2 (2017): 67. 76. Marc Augé, Non-places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity, trans. John Howe (London: Verso, 1995), 103. 77. Haun Saussy, Great Walls of Discourse and Other Adventures in Cultural China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001), 65. 78. Stalling, Yingelishi, 89–92. 79. Ezra Pound, “A Few Don’ts by an Imagiste,” Poetry 1, no. 6 (1913): 200. 80. Jing Tsu, “New Area Studies and Languages on the Move,” PMLA 126, no. 3 (2011): 697. Both Stalling and Lin derive their approaches from a technique of “turning and cutting” characters (fanqie ⍵↯) developed as early as the third century ad and used widely in medieval Chinese rhyme books. See William  H. Baxter, A Handbook of Old Chinese Phonology (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1992), 33. 81. Tsu, “New Area Studies,” 697. 82. Tsu, Sound and Script, 62–63, 68–69. 83. Tsu, 63. 84. Tsu, 61–63. For more on Richards’s propagation of Basic English in China, see Rodney Koeneke, Empires of the Mind: I. A. Richards and Basic English in China, 1929–1979 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004). On Pound’s positive response to Basic English, see Yunte Huang, “Basic English, Chinglish, and Translocal Dialect,” in English and Ethnicity, ed. Janina Brutt-Griffler and Catherine Evans Davies (New York: Palgrave, 2006), 84–87. 85. Rita Raley, “Machine Translation and Global English,” Yale Journal of Criticism 16, no. 2 (2003): 294–95. 86. Warren Weaver, “Translation,” in Machine Translation of Languages: Fourteen Essays, ed. W. N. Locke and A. D. Booth (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1955), 22. 87. Tsu, Sound and Script, 64. 88. Lydia Liu, “iSpace: Printed English After Joyce, Shannon, and Derrida,” Critical Inquiry 32, no. 3 (Spring 2006): 549. 89. Liu, 536; Tsu, Sound and Script, 65. 90. Tsu, 65.

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91. Hsia Yü ⢷⬯, Pink Noise 䰱䲭刚☒枛 (Taipei: Hsia Yü; Garden City, 2007), 22, 23. Since Pink Noise lacks pagination. Numbers refer to the numbered poems in the book. On Hsia Yü’s sources, see Brian Skerratt, “Form and Transformation in Modern Chinese Poetry and Poetics” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 2013), 230–32. 92. Hsia Yü, Pink Noise; Hsia Yü, “Trailers from Hsia Yü’s New Volume of Poetry: Pink Noise,” interview by A Weng 旧佩, trans. Zona Yi-Ping Tsou 悺⿉⸛, Full Tilt: A Journal of East-Asian Poetry, Translation, and the Arts 3 (2008), page archived at the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, captured October 8, 2011, https://web.archive .org /web/20111008100507/http: //fulltilt .ncu .edu .tw/Content .asp?I_No=33& Per i od=3. The interview with A Weng first appeared in Xianzai shi 䎦⛐娑 4 (2006). 93. Bachner, Beyond Sinology, 200. 94. Hsia Yü, Pink Noise, 18. 95. Hsia Yü, 1. 96. Hsia Yü, 25. 97. Hsia Yü, 29, 20, 17, 4, 4. 98. Hsia Yü, “Trailers from Hsia Yü’s New Volume of Poetry.” 99. Hsia Yü, Pink Noise, 22. 100. Karl Marx, Das Kapital, vol. 1, original German based on 4th ed. (1890), trans. Hans G. Ehrbar, Docslide.us, posted April 20, 2015, 477, http://docslide.us/documents/marx-capital-kapital.html. 101. The source of the English translation is probably Dieter Saalmann, “ ‘We Erect Our Structure in the Imagination Before We Erect It in Reality’ (Karl Marx, Das Kapital): Postmodern Reflections on Christa Wolf,” Germanic Review: Literature, Culture, Theory 67, no. 4 (1992): 159–66. 102. Marx, Kapital, 451–52. 103. Viktor Shklovskii, O teorii prozy (Moscow: Federatsiia, 1929), 12. 104. Hsia Yü, Pink Noise, 1. 105. Tong King Lee, Experimental Chinese Literature: Translation, Technology, Poetics (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 37. 106. Hsia Yü, Pink Noise, 22. 107. Lee, Experimental Chinese Literature, 65–66. 108. Haun Saussy, “Judith Gautier, Victor Segalen, Translation and Printing Technology,” Printculture, February 4, 2017, http://printculture.com/judith-gautier-segalen -translation-and-printing-technology. 109. Shklovskii, O teorii prozy, 13; Saussy, “Judith Gautier.” 110. Shklovskii, O teorii prozy, 13. 111. David L. Gilden, “Cognitive Emissions of 1/f Noise,” Psychological Review 108, no. 1 (2001): 35. 112. Craig Dworkin, “The Potential Energy of Texts [ΔU = -PΔV],” Iowa Review 44, no. 3 (Winter 2014/2015): 142. 113. Dworkin, 142. 114. Sol LeWitt, “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art,” Artforum 5, no. 10 (June 1967): 80. 115. Brendan Richardson, “ ‘It’s a Fix!’ The Mediative Influence of the X Factor Tribe on Narrative Transportation as Persuasive Process,” Journal of Consumer Behaviour 12 (2013): 124.

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116. Lee, Experimental Chinese Literature, 37. 117. Lee, 66. 118. Tan Lin, “The Expanded Preface,” in Appendix to “Seven Controlled Vocabularies and Obituary 2004: The Joy of Cooking” (Philadelphia: Edit Publications, 2010), 8, PDF, http://aphasic-letters.com/edit/publications.html. This and the other Edit Publications editions of Seven Controlled Vocabularies cited below were conceptualized and developed by a number of editors, in collaboration with Lin, at an event organized by Danny Snelson at the University of Pennsylvania on April 21, 2010. “Edit: An Event Series at the Kelly Writers House,” accessed May 8, 2018, http://www.dss-edit.com/series. Although “nearly everything” in the Edit Publications editions was “edited, often anonymously, by any number of people,” Snelson confirms that “The Expanded Preface” was “entirely Tan’s work.” Danny Snelson, email to the author, April 8, 2018. 119. Tan Lin, Seven Controlled Vocabularies and Obituary 2004: The Joy of Cooking (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2010), 11, 24, 32, 104. 120. Tan Lin, 7CV Chinese Edition (ᶫ⍿㍏娆堐␴2004⸜妫⏲), trans. Chris Alexander, A. M. J. Crawford, and Cecilia Corrigan using Google Translate, eds. 1–4 (Philadelphia: Edit Publications, 2010), PDF, http://aphasic-letters.com/edit/publications.html. The four editions are described as follows: “Edition 1, in traditional Chinese without images. Edition 2, with images. Edition 3, in simplified Chinese with images. Edition 4, reverse translation from simplified Chinese into English.” 121. Tan Lin, “Disco as Operating System, Part One,” Criticism 50, no. 1 (2008): 96. 122. Tan Lin, from Seven Controlled Vocabularies and Obituary 2004: The Joy of Cooking, Segue reading at the Bowery Poetry Club, New York, April 11, 2009, PennSound, 9:06, http://media .sas .upenn.edu /pennsound /authors/Lin /Segue -4–11–09/Lin-Tan_04_Seven-Controlled-Vocabularies_Segue-BPC_NY_4–11–09 .mp3, 0:20–0:29. 123. Lin, Appendix, 14; Tan Lin, interview by Katherine Elaine Sanders, Bomb Magazine, March 29, 2010, http://bombmagazine.org /article/3467. 124. Timothy Yu, “Asian American Poetry in the First Decade of the 2000s,” Contemporary Literature 52, no. 4 (2011): 837. 125. Frank H. Wu, Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White (New York: Basic Books, 2002), 95. 126. Lin, Appendix, 16. The note is reproduced as an image file of Liu, “iSpace,” 531n34. However, the formatting matches neither the print text nor the currently available online versions of Liu’s article. 127. Lin, Appendix, 7; Lin, interview by Katherine Elaine Sanders.

RECAPITULATIONS 1. “Anti-cuts March: Tens of Thousands at London Protest,” BBC News, March 27, 2011, http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-12864353. 2. Sean Bonney, “Communique—(After Rimbaud),” Abandonedbuildings, March 27, 2011, http://abandonedbuildings.blogspot.com/2011/03/communique-after-rimbaud _27.html.

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3. Christian Bök, “Five Translations of Arthur Rimbaud’s ‘Voyelles,’ ” Wag’s Revue 3 (Fall 2009): 46–53, http://wagsrevue.com/Issue_3/index_poetry.php#/46. 4. Christian Bök, Eunoia, upgraded edition (Toronto: Coach House, 2009), 84–95. 5. Bök, “Five Translations.” 6. Christian Bök, “The Xenotext Experiment: An Interview with Christian Bök,” by Stephen Voyce, Postmodern Culture 17, no. 2 (2007), http://www.pomoculture.org /2013/09/10/the-xenotext-experiment-an-interview-with-christian-bok . 7. Sean Bonney, “Letter on Poetics (After Rimbaud),” Abandonedbuildings, June 25, 2011, http://abandonedbuildings.blogspot.com/2011/06/letter-on-poetics.html. An updated version of this statement appears in Sean Bonney, Happiness: Poems After Rimbaud (London: Unkant, 2011), 64. 8. Bonney, Happiness, 3. 9. Sean Bonney, Baudelaire in English (London: Veer, 2008), 90 (solidus in the original). 10. Bonney, Happiness, 38. 11. Fredric Jameson, The Prison-House of Language (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972). 12. Jacques Derrida, Marges de la philosophie (Paris: Minuit, 1972), 365–93. 13. Derrida’s “Signature événement contexte” was first presented as a paper at the fifteenth Congrès international des Sociétés de philosophie de langue française, Montreal University, August 29–September 2, 1971. The theme of the congress was “La communication.” Derrida, Marges, 365. On the role of media theory in poststructuralist thought, see Andrea Bachner, The Mark of Theory: Inscriptive Figures, Poststructuralist Prehistories (New York: Fordham University Press, 2018). 14. Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, trans. Paul Patton (London: Continuum, 1994), 250. 15. For example, Derek Attridge, The Singularity of Literature (London: Routledge, 2004); and the extension of that book’s argument in Derek Attridge, The Work of Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). 16. Edward Kamau Brathwaite, “Jazz and the West Indian Novel III,” Bim 46 (January–June 1968): 124. 17. Edward Kamau Brathwaite, The Development of Creole Society in Jamaica, 1770– 1820 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971), 237. 18. Edward Kamau Brathwaite, lecture and reading, International Poetry Forum 1987, Pittsburgh, February  10, PennSound, 45:43, http://media.sas.upenn.edu /pennsound /authors/Brathwaite/Brathwaite-Kamau_Intl-Poetry-Forum_Pitts_ Feb-10–1987.mp3, 0:53–1:01. See the lines “muse/ // in computer & / learnin prospero linguage” in Edward Kamau Brathwaite, X/Self (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 84. 19. E. K. Brathwaite, X/Self, 85. 20. Mongrel Coalition Against Gringpo, “MCAG Presents the Best Conceptual Poem of the Year: Interrupting the Maintenance of White Supremacy,” Internet Archive Wayback Machine, snapshot of Gringpo.com from April 5, 2015, https:// web.archive.org /web/20150405002803/http://gringpo.com. Compare the similar rhetoric of alt right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, who claims that he does not want to change the academy but just wants to “burn it down.” CNN, “Trump Slams UC Berkeley After Protests Turn Violent,” video accompanying Madison

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Park and Kyung Lah, “Berkeley Protests of Yiannopoulos Caused $100,000 in Damage,” February  3, 2017, http://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/01/us/milo-yianno poulos-berkeley. 21. For example, Carrie Noland, Agency and Embodiment: Performing Gestures / Producing Culture (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009), 190.

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INDEX

Figures are indicated by an “ f ” after the page number. A: A Novel (Warhol), 6 Aasprong, Monica, 136, 269n74 absence: of letters in Bergvall’s work, 136–43; in “Oulipo,” 203–4 abstraction: Marx on, 226; metadata terms and, 231 abstraction of the body: modernism, women and, 162–63; network economy and, 167; slavery and, 166; white privilege and, 177 acetate discs (dub plates), Jamaican DJs’ use of, 5, 6, 34–35 Admussen, Nick, 287n73 aesthetics: aesthetic questions, Mongrel Coalition’s attacks on, 184–85, 187–88; the boring, as aesthetic category, 165; the cool, as aesthetic category, 276n60; East Asian aesthetics in the Western imagination, 217, 219; the interesting, as aesthetic category, 165, 167; politics, question of relationship to, 154, 181–82, 186–87, 272n11; relational aesthetics (esthétique relationnelle), 122–23; of samizdat, 65, 70; of social media, 155

Africa, West African connection with Caribbean, 38, 41, 46, 47, 50 African diaspora: The Arrivants and the music of, 40; Brathwaite on Eliot and speech and music of, 27; Brathwaite on radio and, 32; Edwards on, 58. See also black Atlantic; black diaspora “The African Presence in Caribbean Literature” (Brathwaite), 47 Afro-Caribbean performance poetry, 5 Afternoon of the Status Crow (“Caribbean Culture: Two Paradigms,” Brathwaite), 53–55, 57–60, 59f agency: Butler on, 130; repetition and, 238 Ainsi parla l’oncle (So Spoke the Uncle, Price-Mars), 39 air transport, as figure for globalization, 197, 216–18, 229 Akan people, 40–44, 46 Albert, Yuri, 16, 77, 80f, 85 Alexander, Lorrimer, 252n92

326 INDEX

Algeria, radio’s impact on, 29 allegory: Benjamin and, 161; conceptual writing and, 89, 261n66, 274n34, 275n51; Goldsmith and, 156, 159, 161–64; Joyce and, 162–63, 166; Place and, 18, 165; white privilege and, 167–68, 175, 179–80 Allsopp, Ric, 120 alphabet: Chinese script and, 197, 203, 219–23; as compositional device in poetry, 70–72, 137, 160; ideograph versus, 222–31 Alphabets (Azbuki) series (Prigov), 70–72, 258n27 Altieri, Charles, 12 American Writing Programs (AWP), 152, 271n6 anagrams, 128, 129, 130, 132, 133 analogical thinking, challenges of, 12 Ancestors (Brathwaite), 60 Anderson, Betty, 30 Andrews, Bruce, 131–32 Anglo-American avant-garde poetry, 17, 60–61, 118, 125, 149 Anglo-American modernism, 10–11, 92 Anglophone Caribbean, media institutions and cultural independence efforts in, 22–23 anticolonialism, 22–23, 30 Anyaneanyane (The Awakening, drum prelude), 41–45, 48 appropriation of blackness, tradition of, 178 Arcades Project, The (Benjamin), 160–61, 163 Arrivants, The (Brathwaite), 40, 44, 45, 46–48, 50, 254n134 art: artistic value, shifts in, 157–58; dehumanization of, 82; as plagiarism, 93 Assembling Alternatives conference, 124, 127 Attali, Jacques, 159 attention economy, 18, 160, 165–67, 170, 178 “Atumpan” (Brathwaite), 43–44, 46–47 Auden, W. H., 189

audio recordings. See recording(s); tape recording Austin, J. L., 127 authoritarianism, radio and, 32, 33 authority: copying as response to, 4; crises in, 196, 200 Author Proposes to Meet, The (Avtor predlagaet sobirat'sia, Rubinstein), 76, 78f authorship: Goldsmith on, 161; in samizdat era, 85 automatization of the canonized, 9 avant-garde bullshit, 176–77 avant-garde form, conflation with the female body, 126–28 Avia, Tusiata, 2 Awakening, The (Anyaneanyane, drum prelude), 41–45, 48 “Awakening, The” (Brathwaite), 41, 42, 44 AWP (American Writing Programs), 152, 271n6 A-Ya (émigré art journal), 69, 81 Azbuki (Alphabets) series (Prigov), 70–72, 258n27 Bäcker, Heimrad, 135 Baker, Kenneth, 120 Bakhtin, Mikhail, 13, 70 Banpo (Yang), 96, 97 Barabajan Poems (Brathwaite), 58f, 60 Baraka, Amiri (LeRoi Jones), 125, 185, 248n18 Barbados, Brathwaite in, 26, 33 bards (magnitizdat poets), 65 Barmé, Geremie, 96 Barnstone, Tony, 215 Barrel (Bochka, Collective Actions), 81–83 Barthes, Roland, 4, 164 Basic English, 221 Baudelaire in English (Bonney), 233, 234 bawdiness, Caribbean culture and, 37, 50 Beatles, The, 6 Beauvoir, Simone de, 182–83

327 INDEX

Beckett, Samuel, 6, 180 Bei Dao, 93, 96, 207–9, 208f, 286n55 Beijing pinglun (Beijing review, BBS), 207, 208f being lost at sea (hafvilla), 136 Belafonte, Harry, 32 Belinsky, Vissarion, 72 Bellmer, Hans, 128, 132, 133 Bénabou, Marcel, 228 Benjamin, Jessica, 182 Benjamin, Walter, 12, 160–61, 163 Bergvall, Caroline, 116–49; Brathwaite’s influence on, 61, 117, 149; cultural migration, role in, 118; Dartington performance writing program and, 119, 121–22; iterative practices of, 118; linguistic mixing of, 140; migrant voices, reiteration of, 236; performance writing, impact on, 17, 125; performance writing of, 123, 149; repetition, use of, 117, 123–24, 126–28, 130, 133–40, 145–46; rules, use of, 195; translations, embodiment of, 138 Bergvall, Caroline, works of: “Crop,” 146; “Cropper,” 140–46; “Croup,” 146; Drift, 116–17, 134–37, 136f, 138–39, 146–49; Eclát, 123; Flèsh, 128; “Goan Atom (Doll),” 128, 129, 131, 133; “In the Place of Writing,” 127; “Log,” 148; Meddle English, 116–17, 131, 144–45; Middling English, 140–45, 141f, 142f, 143f; “Monique Wittig,” 127; “No Margins to This Page,” 126–27; Noth’rs, 124, 267n31; Say: “Parsley,” 61, 116, 117, 123; “Via,” 137; “What Do We Mean by Performance Writing?,” 123–24 Berkeley Poetry Conference, 152 Bernstein, Charles, 124 “Best Conceptual Poem of the Year, The” (Mongrel Coalition), 181, 184–91, 280n134 Bhabha, Homi, 25, 249n30 binaries: fragment-whole, 48; gender, 126; local-global, 109; master-slave, 177, 182–83; oral-literary, 37, 252n91; singularity-system, 114, 205

Binyon, Laurence, 137 Bishop, Claire, 122–23 black Atlantic musical tradition, Gilroy on, 40. See also African diaspora; black diaspora black diaspora, 32, 58. See also African diaspora; black Atlantic blackface, 172–74, 181, 186 Black Skin, White Masks (Fanon), 179 Bochka (Barrel, Collective Actions), 81–83 bodies: in Bergvall’s work, 125–26, 136–40, 143, 145–46; black bodies, mimicry of, 152, 154; black bodies, white possession of, 167–68, 174, 176; bodily silencing, 181; body texts, performance writing and, 126–33; female, possession of, 166; fragile bodies, samizdat poetics and, 88–89; individual bodies, for speaking and writing, 118; journeys of, 147; language, entwinement with, 138–46; missing/dead bodies, 133–50; others’ possession of, 166; performance, embodiment in, 119; racialized, conceptual writing and, 186; in slavery, 166–67; texts versus, 125, 130–31, 133; violent possession of, link with copy poetry, 165; white versus black, 186; women’s bodies, objectification of, 131–33, 153 “Body of Michael Brown, The” (reading at Interrupt 3 conference, Goldsmith), 18, 151, 167–68, 169, 171, 181, 185–86, 187, 276n70 Bök, Christian, 2, 165, 232–33, 238 Bonney, Sean, 232–34, 238 books, born in translation, 196, 200 Boon, Marcus, 157, 273n15 Borges, Jorge Luis, 10, 13–14 boring, the, as aesthetic category, 165 Bourriaud, Nicolas, 122 Boycott (Place), 3, 183 bpNichol, 125 Braque, Georges, 10 Brathwaite, Doris, 34, 36, 40, 60–61

328 INDEX

Brathwaite, Kamau (previously Edward), 20–61; in Barbados, 26, 33; Bergvall, influence on, 61, 117, 149; Bergvall on, 134; CAM and, 36; Caribbean oral culture, conception of, 38–52; in England, 35–36; in Ghana, 28–29, 34, 41; globalization, understanding of, 237; introduction to, 15–16, 20–26; mentioned, 2, 236; in New York City, 45–52, 60; pamphlets of, 255n157; performance writing and, 125; poetics of, 35, 52, 59, 196, 238–39; radio and, 23, 26, 28–33; record player, use of, 26–28, 33–34; repetition, use of, 152, 237; in St. Lucia, 30, 32; Sycorax video-style, 21, 57, 59, 60; tape recording, use of 33–38; technology, use of, 23, 61, 256n164; tidalectics, 54–55, 58, 59, 59f, 237; typescript, use of, 52–61; at University of the West Indies, 30; versioning, use of, 5–6, 27–28, 34–35, 38, 40–52, 53–60 Brathwaite, Kamau, views of: on Eliot’s recording of Four Quartets, 26–27; on Grainger, 20–21; on nation language, 21; on own works, 252n97; on radio and the Middle Passage, 33; on remixing, 159; on slavery, legacy of, 179 Brathwaite, Kamau, works of: “The African Presence in Caribbean Literature,” 47; Afternoon of the Status Crow (“Caribbean Culture: Two Paradigms”), 53–55, 57–60, 59f; Ancestors, 60; The Arrivants, 40, 44, 45, 46–48, 50, 254n134; “Atumpan,” 43–44, 46–47; “The Awakening,” 41, 42, 44; Barabajan Poems, 58f, 60; “Caliban,” 50; “Calypso,” 21, 24, 25, 31–32, 35, 249n26, 252n79; “Caribbean Theme,” 249n26, 252n79; “Dust,” 46–48; History of the Voice (Nation Language Poetry), 21, 24, 26, 53, 53f; Iouanaloa: Recent Writing from St. Lucia, 30–32; Islands, 41, 44, 45, 46–47; “Jah,” 33; “Jazz and the West Indian Novel,” 37–38; “Letter

Sycorax,” 60, 237; “The Making of the Drum,” 41, 43, 45, 46, 48; Masks, 40–46, 52, 60, 254n134; Mother Poem, 55–57, 60; “Nametracks,” 55–60, 56f, 58f, 117, 149; “Naming,” 46–49; Nation Language Poetry (History of the Voice), 53, 53f; “Negus,” 45–47, 49, 58; “Prelude” to Masks, 41; Rights of Passage, 35–36, 37, 40, 44, 47, 49, 254n134; “Shepherd,” 48, 51; “Sir Galahad and the Islands,” 30–32, 37; “Solo for Trumpet,” 33; “Tano,” 48; “The Twist,” 49–52; Voices of Ghana, review of, 29, 30, 32, 33, 40; “The Youth,” editor of special issue, 252n91 British Council, recordings by, 26 “Broadcast to the West Indies” (Hughes), 33 Brown, Michael, Goldsmith’s reading of autopsy report of, 18, 151, 167–68, 169, 171, 181, 185–86, 187, 276n70 Buffalo Poetics Listserv, 273n19 bullshit, 176–78 Burroughs, William, 3, 197 Burt, Stephanie, 273n14 Butler, Judith, 129–30, 131, 133, 249n30 Byrne, Mairead, 281n156 Cage, John, 3, 103–4, 120, 125, 213 “Caliban” (Brathwaite), 50 Caliban (Tempest character), 57, 60, 237 Call to Arms (Na han, Lu Xun), 212 calypso, 31, 32, 50 Calypso (Belafonte), 32 “Calypso” (Brathwaite), 21, 24, 25, 31–32, 35, 249n26, 252n79 “Calypso, The” (DaBreo), 31 Calypsonian, The (Selvon), 30–31, 37 CAM (Caribbean Artists Movement), 36–37, 44, 236 Cantos, The (Pound), 106, 108, 264n38 Capital (Goldsmith), 160–61, 164 capitalism, Marx on, 225–26. See also network capitalism Capone, Francesca, 151 Caribbean: Brathwaite on culture of, 36, 59; culture of, 20, 36–40, 41, 54;

329 INDEX

telephone calls in, 54; (West) Africa, connection with, 38, 41, 46, 47, 50. See also Jamaica Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM), 36–37, 44, 236 “Caribbean Theme” (Brathwaite), 249n26, 252n79 Caribbean Voices (BBC radio program), 28 Carrión, Jorge, 192 Carson, Anne, 2 Cary, Henry Francis, 137 Casanova, Pascale, 8 cassette culture and cassette tapes, 23, 64. See also tape recording Cayley, John: Bergvall and, 119; computer-based poetry, first experiments with, 108–9; copyright and, 180; at Dartington, 267n29; influences on, 95; as organizer of Interrupt 3, 151, 280n134; performance writing and, 124; poetics of, 104, 106; Pound and, 106, 107, 264n38; repetition, use of, 114; rules, use of, 195; Yang, association with, 104; zhi, exploration of, 107. See also YangCayley collaboration Cayley, John, works of: “How It Is” in Common Tongues (with Howe), 180; Noth’rs (with Bergvall), 124, 267n31; Where the Sea Stands Still (digital adaptation with Yang), 94–95, 104–14, 112f, 119–20, 265n54, 265n56; Wine Flying, 108, 119 center-periphery conflict, 8–9, 115, 192–93 Checker, Chubby, 50 cheek, cris, 122–23, 124, 147, 267n29 Ch’en, Kenneth, 264n51 Chen Li, 223 Chen, Xiaomei, 93, 94 Chernovik poeta (Poet’s Draft, Prigov), 70, 72, 73f China: copying of classics in, 211; culture, nature of, 198; medieval rhyme books, 287n80; modernism in, 93–94, 96–97, 115; poetry movements

(early 2000s), 209; renewed interest in, 195; twentieth-century literature of, 92–93. See also Chinese language; Yang-Cayley collaboration “China” (Perelman), 197 “Chinese,” as metadata term, 230–31 Chinese language: Chinese script, technology, and globalization and, 197–98; English language, relationship with, 199–200, 220–21, 228; and repetition, 214; synchronicity of, 105–6; syntax of, 225, 227; Tang-era versus modern, 210–11. See also China Chinese Poems of the Tang and Sung Dynasties (Folkways album), 202 Chinese room, Searle on, 194–98, 206, 212, 213–14, 226 Chow, Rey, 11 “Chuantong yu women” (“Tradition and Us,” Yang), 97 circle culture, Brathwaite on: 54–55, 57–59 circulation theory, 8, 9 Clarke, Kenny, 28 class divisions, radio as bridge over, 31, 32 “Coaching Papers” (Som), 201, 204 Cobbing, Bob, 125 cognition: by machines, Searle on, 194; networked distribution of, 199–200 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 122 Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (cheek), 122–23, 147 collections and collecting, 156–57, 160–63 Collective Actions (Kollektivnye deistviia) group, 76, 81–82, 258n23 Collymore, Frank, 28 colonialism: anticolonialism, 22–23, 30; impact of new media technologies on, 14; neocolonialism, Brathwaite and, 51. See also postcolonialism combinatoriality, 6–7 Comment une figue de paroles et pourquoi (How a Fig of Utterance and Why, Ponge), 127

330 INDEX

“Communique—(After Rimbaud)” (Bonney), 232 Communist Manifesto (Marx and Engels), 188 conceptualism (conceptual art): discourse of, slavery and, 179; new media technologies and, 91; Russian, 13, 89; Western, samizdat and, 236. See also Mongrel Coalition Against Gringpo conceptual writing, 151–93; as allegorical, 274n34; conclusions on, 192–93; description of, 149–50; Goldsmith as collector and allegorist, 156–68; introduction to, 17–18, 151–56; master-slave relationships, Place and, 179–92; mentioned, 3; racial mimicry in, 178; trolling and bullshit and, 168–78 consumerism, sexual desire and, 225 consumption: as production, 2, 6; in prosumer economy, 159 content, attention versus, 170 cool, the, 276n60 copies and copying: autocracy’s diffusion and, 243n13; Boon on, 273n15; Brathwaite’s critique of, 25; of classic Chinese texts, 211; competing accounts of, 183–84; copy culture, 23, 188, 198; copy literature, importance of, 8; in current digital networked media, 191; digital copying, 227; double valence of, 153; as driver of literary evolution, 192–93; exact copies, nature of, 13; as fusing dichotomies, 154, 155; Goldsmith and, 156, 184; identity and, 154–56; in modernism, 10; monetization of, 18; Mongrel Coalition and, 180, 183, 184; in the networked economy, parodies of, 164; ownership of, 189; Place and, 176, 177–80, 184; poetics of, 12–13; prevalence of, 241n2; problems of proliferation of, 83; samizdat principle’s impact on, 81; slavery and, 167, 168; ubiquity of, 1. See also identity(ies); repetition

copy poetry: Brathwaite and, 20–61; conceptual writing, 151–93; conclusions on, 232–39; double function of, 4; globalization and technology and, 194–231; introduction to, 1–19; performance writing, 116–50; samizdat, 62–90; Yang-Cayley collaboration, 91–115 copyright, 157–58, 180 “Corpus” (Bergvall), 146 Costa, Eduardo, 6 creative economy, 121, 134 creolization, culture as, 25–26 Critchley, Emily, 125 critical regionalism, poetics of, 199–200 critical translation, poetics of, 199–200 “Crop” (Bergvall), 146 “Cropper” (Bergvall), 140–46 “Croup” (Bergvall), 146 Cullors, Patrisse, 188, 189, 191, 282n165 Cultural Revolution Pop, 96 culture: Brathwaite’s iterative theory of, 25–26; of the Caribbean, 20, 36–40, 41, 54; cassette culture, 64; copy culture, 23, 188, 198; cultural authority, 7, 9; cultural circulation, models of, 114–15; cultural cores, 54, 55, 58; cultural diversity, 285n51; cultural hybridity, 25; cultural production, 1, 6–7; European, 54, 137; media as cultural practices, 6, 24, 236; repetition’s role in, 1–2, 77; samizdat culture, Prigov on, 69 Cunningham, Merce, 120 cut-ups, Mongrel Coalition’s use of, 184, 188 cyberlibertarianism, 156–58, 163, 183 cybertextual transformation, 104 DaBreo, Denis, 31 Dahai tingzhi zhi chu. See Where the Sea Stands Still Damon, Maria, 282n156 Dante Alighieri, 137 dark wood (selva oscura), 137, 138

331 INDEX

Dartington College of Arts, performance writing program at, 119, 120, 124, 265n5, 267n29 Dartington Hall School, 120 Davis, Miles, 34 Day (Goldsmith), 160, 162 De Camp, David, 38 decentered subjects, 164 “Dedicated to the Hermit Cui” (“Ti Cui yiren shan ting,” Qian Qi), 108 Deletion and Growth (Udalenie i narastanie, Prigov), 67, 68f, 69, 72 Deleuze, Gilles, 235 de Man, Paul, 183–84 Deng Xiaoping, 95 Derrida, Jacques, 127, 130, 234–35 Dessalines, Jean-Jacques, 191–92 dialectics, Brathwaite on, 54 “Diary of a Madman” (Lu Xun), 212 dichotomies: copies and, 154, 155; falseness of, 235 Dickens, Charles, 4, 5 Did the Meaning of This Work Change After It Was Photographed? (Izmenilsia li smysl etoi raboty posle togo, kak ona byla sfotografirovana?, Albert), 77, 80f Différence et répétition (Deleuze), 235 differences, samenesses versus, 8 digital copying, 227 digital economy, as slavery, 180 digital media, 14, 105, 120. See also specific media digital texts, versioning of, 55 dinozavr (dinosaur), as word, Prigov’s use of, 74, 75 Disparition, La (Perec), 233 distant reading, 8 DJs, in Jamaica, 5, 6, 34, 35 Donegan, Cheryl, 162 Dostoevsky, Fyodor, 75 “Draft 101: Puppet Opera” (DuPlessis), 132 Drift (Bergvall), 116–17, 134–37, 136f, 138–39, 146–49 drums, 36–37, 41–44, 47–48, 52 dualities, modernism’s unsettling of, 115

dub plates (acetate discs), Jamaican DJs’ use of, 5, 6, 34–35 dub poetry, 5 dub versioning, 6, 34–35 Duchamp, Marcel, 10, 132 DuPlessis, Rachel Blau, 126, 132, 268n62 Durback, Lara, 268n62 dust, symbolism of, 48 “Dust” (Brathwaite), 46–48 dust clouds, 47 Dworkin, Craig, 165 dystopianism, Place’s, 18, 153, 168, 176, 179, 183, 184, 190 echoes, 205 Eclát (Bergvall), 123 écriture féminine, 127 Education Reform Act (Britain, 1988), 120 Edwards, Brent, 58 Eighteenth Alphabet: Stone and Circles on Water (Vosemnadtsataia azbuka: Kamen' i krugi na vode, Prigov), 62, 63f, 64–67, 69, 70–72, 101, 238 Eisenstein, Sergei, 10, 197 Eliot, T. S., 26–27, 48, 249n36 Elmhirst, Leonard, 120 embodiment. See bodies emptiness, poetics of, 215–16, 217 Engels, Friedrich, 188 English language: Brathwaite on, 237; Chinese language, relationship with, 199–200, 220–21, 228 entrapment: in Chinese and Western traditions, 96, 105, 211; in conceptual writing, 18, 179, 196; neocolonial, 51; technological, 200; of traditional Chinese culture, 211, 212 epic poems, nature of orality of, 39 “Escrituras conceptuales: Un panorama” (“Conceptual Writings: An Overview,” Carrión), 192 esthétique relationnelle (relational aesthetics), 122–23 estrangement: automatic, 226–28; literary evolution and, 9; homelessness and, 146. See also foreignness

332 INDEX

ethnic diversity, 285n51 Eugene Onegin (Pushkin), as source text, 13, 70, 72, 74, 74f, 75, 82, 84–85, 87 Eunoia (Bök), 232–33 European culture: European tradition, origins of, 137; mimicry of, 54 European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), 95, 273n17 evacuation of history, 287n73 Evans, Gil, 34 Even-Zohar, Itamar, 9 exclusion, 149 exile (piaobo; floating life), 97, 98, 100 Facebook, 158, 159, 164 Facsimile Reproduction of Dmitri Aleksandrovich Prigov’s Self-Made Book “Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin” with Drawings on the Margins of the Work by Aleksandr Florensky (Prigov), 84–88, 86f facsimiles, 86 “fakes” (shanzhai), 198 Fanon, Frantz, 23, 29–30, 33, 179, 236 fanyi shi (translation poetry), 227 Felski, Rita, 126, 127 feminism: feminist literary criticism, Bergvall on, 126–27; feminist poetics, 126–27; feminist trolls, 169 “Ferrum” (Philip), 148 Fidget (Goldsmith), 159, 162 field poetics, 138 Fitterman, Robert, 274n34 “Five Translations of Arthur Rimbaud’s ‘Voyelles’ ” (Bök), 232–33 “Five Variations on a Poem by Li Yu to the Tune of ‘Night Crow Caws,’ ” (Li Yu, Stalling, and Stalling), 221–22, 222f Flèsh (Bergvall), 128 flip-books, 87 floating life (piaobo; exile), 97, 98, 100 folk music, field recordings of, 34 foreignness, 19, 231. See also estrangement form: Bergvall on, 128–29, 130, 133; copy forms, 5, 16, 18, 149; literary forms, movement of, 8, 9, 14, 93–94, 105, 193;

manifesto form, 191; musical forms, 6, 37, 52; oral forms, 38, 42–43; Russian formalism, 9; serial form, 70, 72, 74–75; social forms, 4; versus content, 154; versus history, 234–35; versus instantiation, 83; of Where the Sea Stands Still, 100–103, 113. See also repetition (iteration) Foucault, Michel, 60 Four Quartets (Eliot), 26–27, 249n36 fragile bodies, 88–89 Francisco, Slinger (“Mighty Sparrow”), 31, 36–37 freedom, as economic right, 157 free speech, rhetoric of, 171 G., Kenny, 151 Galich, Alexander, 65 Gandhi, Mahatma, 10 Gao Xingjian, 97, 104 Garbage School (Laji pai), 18, 199, 207–9, 212, 213 gender: gender essentialism, rejection of, 126; performances of, 130 generalization, singularity versus, 145 genius, value of, 158 Ghana, Brathwaite and Swanzy in, 28–29 Gillespie, Dizzy, 28 Gilroy, Paul, 40, 248n18 Ginsberg, Allen, 6 Give Em Enough Rope (Andrews), 131 Glazier, Loss Pequeño, 267n32 “Global” (Neale), 2–3 globalization: era of, 95; globalism, emptiness of, 217; global literature, problem of, 229; impact of, 196; impossibility of comprehending totality of, 198; manifestations of, 236–37; nature of, 14 globalization and technology, 194–231; discussion of, 223–31; Garbage School, 207–9; introduction to, 18–19, 194–200; “Oulipo,” 201–7; translation poetry, 213–23, 227; Yi Sha and, 209–13 “Goan Atom (Doll)” (Bergvall), 128, 129, 131, 133

333 INDEX

Gold Coast, Brathwaite and Swanzy in, 28 Goldsmith, Kenneth: Brown autopsy, reading of, 18, 151, 167–68, 169, 171, 181, 185–86, 187, 276n70; as collector and allegorist, 156–68; controversy over, 151–53; copy and politics of identity, 154–55; critiques of, 164; debate with Place, Mongrel Coalition’s intervention in, 180–92; identity of, 164; mentioned, 2, 17–18; modern world, response to, 150; Place, comparison with, 168; Place’s critique of, 166–67; Place’s influence on, 171; Place’s trolling of, 178; poetics of, 163; on poetry and liberation, 183; racism, use of, 169–70; rules, use of, 195; utopianism, 153–54, 164, 168, 183, 184, 191 Goldsmith, Kenneth, works of: “The Body of Michael Brown” (reading at Interrupt 3 conference), 18, 151, 167–68, 169, 171, 181, 185–86, 187, 276n70; Capital, 160–61, 164; Day, 160, 162; Fidget, 159, 162; “Kenneth Goldsmith Sings Theory,” 160; No. 111 2.7.93–10.20.96, 156, 160; Printing Out the Internet, 160, 275n36; Seven American Deaths and Disasters, 167; Soliloquy, 160, 162, 163, 165 Golston, Michael, 159, 274n34 Gone with the Wind (Mitchell), 152, 166, 168, 171–73, 177, 189 Gone with the Wind project (Place), 169–70, 171–74, 177, 189 Google, 158, 159, 164 Google Translate, 227, 229–30 Goveia, Elsa, 44, 254n121 Grainger, James, 20, 25 gramophone. See record player Gramophone magazine, 249n36 grassroots media, 7, 22–24, 62, 64–66 Great Expectations (Dickens), 4–5 Grenier, Robert, 125 Grobiki otrinutykh stikhov (Little Coffins of Rejected Verse, Prigov), 87, 88 Grotto Heaven (Stalling), 215–16

Groys, Boris, 13, 260n45 guitar (magnitizdat) poets, 65 Gysin, Brion, 3 hafvilla (being lost at sea), 136 haiku, 217–19, 287n75 Hall, John, 119, 121, 125, 265n5 Han, Byung-Chul, 198 “hands up, don’t shoot” protest, 181, 190–91, 281n135 Happiness: Poems After Rimbaud (Bonney), 233–34 Harryman, Carla, 124, 125 Hart, Matthew, 48 Hartman, Saidiya, 186 Hatcher, Ian, 281n156 Hayles, N. Katherine, 198 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 179, 182, 183–84, 194, 196–97 Herskovitz, Melville, 39 He shang (River Elegy, TV series), 97 hierarchies: of global literary histories, questioning of, 11–12; modernism’s unsettling of, 115 hip-hop, 5–6, 35 history, evacuation of, 287n73 History of the Voice (Nation Language Poetry, Brathwaite), 21, 24, 26, 53, 53f Hoagland, Tony, 169–70 Hoh, I. K., 40–41 hologography, Cayley’s use of, 109–10, 264n53 holography, as analogue for Cayley’s transformative processes, 109–10 Holton, Brian, 98, 104 home: search for, 202–4, 206; in Tang, 209–10, 211 homelessness, 146 Hong, Cathy Park, 164, 275n57 How a Fig of Utterance and Why (Comment une figue de paroles et pourquoi, Ponge), 127 Howe, Daniel C., 180 How It Is (Beckett), 180 “How It Is” in Common Tongues (Cayley and Howe), 180

334 INDEX

Hsia Yü, 2, 19, 199, 213, 223–29, 224f, 230 Hughes, Langston, 33 Huk, Romana, 124 humanism, question of meaning of, 196, 198 human rights (renquan), 198 Hurston, Zora Neale, 248n18 HyperCard software, 108, 265n56 hypertext structures, 109, 110, 112 ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts), 95, 104, 113, 119 “Ici la voix de l’Algérie” (“This Is the Voice of Algeria,” Fanon), 29–30 identity(ies): construction of, prosumerist logic of, 164; copying and, 154–56; genuine versus invented, 202; Goldsmith on, 161, 163; Goldsmith’s, 164; loss of, in global travel, 218; mistaken, 204. See also copies and copying ideograph, alphabet versus, 222–31 Illustrations to the Poems of Osip Mandelstam (Illiustratsii k stikham Osipa Mandel'shtama, Yulikov), 77 Impossible Book, The (Nevozmozhnaia kniga, Prigov), 69 “In a Station of the Metro” (Pound), 217–18, 219 independence movements, media use and rise of, 22. See also anticolonialism Indra’s net, 109, 264n51 Inferno (Dante), 137 innovation, value of, 158 Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), 95, 104, 113, 119 institutions, repetition in, 4 interesting, the, as aesthetic category, 165, 167 interlingual puns, 129, 131. See also “Oulipo” (Som); Yingelishi (Stalling) Internet: cyberlibertarianism and, 156–58; Garbage School and, 207; Internet of things, copying and, 1; Pink Noise as mimicking confusion of, 224–25; trolling on, 169. See also

hypertext structures; network capitalism (network economy); World Wide Web Interrupt 3 conference, 151, 184–88, 280n134, 281n156 intersection (peresechenie), 70–72 intersubjective relations, in performance writing, 122 “In the Place of Writing” (Bergvall), 127 Inwood, Heather, 285n52 Iouanaloa: Recent Writing from St. Lucia (Brathwaite, ed.), 30–32 Islands (Brathwaite), 41, 44, 45, 46–47 iterability, 127, 130, 234–35, 243n14, 249n30 iteration. See repetition iterative poetics: Brathwaite’s, 35, 59; formula for, 39; Prigov’s, 83; of samizdat, 66, 67, 89; of textual processing, 196, 231; transformation of, in early twenty-first century, 153; of translation, 196, 199–200, 209; “The Twist” and, 52. See also copy poetry; samizdat iterative turn: Afternoon of the Status Crow and, 55; Bergvall and, 17, 118; Brathwaite and, 15–16, 23; of British and North American poetry, sources of, 117; components of, 18; conceptual writing and, 149–50; globalization and digital technologies and, 196; nature of, 6–7; performance writing and, 118, 124, 134, 149; samizdat principle and, 16, 65, 67, 89, 90; Searle and, 195; significance of, 25; sources of, 91, 94, 116, 236; techniques characteristic of, 60; wave and network metaphors and, 92; Yang’s and Cayley’s, 17, 115 Izmenilsia li smysl etoi raboty posle togo, kak ona byla sfotografirovana? (Did the Meaning of This Work Change After It Was Photographed?, Albert), 77, 80f Jackson, Matthew, 79–80 “Jah” (Brathwaite), 33

335 INDEX

Jamaica: DJs in, 5, 6; dub versioning in, 27, 34–35; folk traditions, Brathwaite and, 252n97. See also Brathwaite, Kamau Jamaican Creole (Le Page and De Camp), 38 Jameson, Fredric, 197–98, 234, 235, 284n26 “Jazz and the West Indian Novel” (Brathwaite), 37–38 jazz poems, 33–34 Jim Crow segregation, 169 “Jing ye si” (“Quiet Night Thoughts,” Li Bai), 201–4, 206, 209–10 Jintian (Today, literary journal), 208 Johnson, Linton Kwesi, 5, 244n22 Jooss, Kurt, 120 Josephs, Kelly Baker, 248n10 Joyce, James, 10, 12, 162–63 Kadir, Djelal, 13 Kalinsky, Yelena, 258n23 Kamen' (Stone, Mandelstam), 67, 257n16 Kaufmann, David, 176 “Kenneth Goldsmith Sings Theory” (Goldsmith), 160 Killer Mike (Michael Render), 181, 187, 188–89 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 189 knowledge, technology’s impact on, 180 Kollektivnye deistviia (Collective Actions) group, 76, 81–82, 258n23 Komaromi, Ann, 88–89 Krapp’s Last Tape (Beckett), 6 Kunin, Aaron, 187, 272n11 Lacan, Jacques, 179 Laji pai (Garbage School), 18, 199, 207–9, 212, 213 La Medusa (Place), 166 language: bodies and, 131, 138–46; globalization and, 196; iterating waves of, 114–15; linguistic dislocations, 202; lost orthographies, 138–39; as repetitive, 206; of universal access, Chinese versus English as,

199–200. See also Chinese language; English language Language writing, 3, 126, 131 Large Glass (Duchamp), 132 La Rose, John, 36 Latin American literature, appropriative poetics in, 192, 283n178 Lawrence, D. H., 156 Leaves of Grass (Whitman), 5 Legba, Papa (Haitian god), 45–46 Le Page, Robert, 38 Lesbian Body, The (Wittig), 129 “Letter Sycorax” (Brathwaite), 60, 237 LeWitt, Sol, 228 Li Bai (Li Po), 201–6, 211 liberation, Lorde on, 183 “Life” (Bei Dao), 207–8, 208f, 286n55 “Life” (Garbage School), 207, 208–9 light, Cayley and metaphor of, 109–10 Liljeroth, Lena Adelsohn, 190 Lin, Maya, 230 Lin, Tan: Chineseness and, 231; iteration, use of, 213; mentioned, 19, 199; Seven Controlled Vocabularies and Obituary 2004: The Joy of Cooking, 229–30, 289n118; working processes of, 229–30, 287n80 Linde, Makode Alexander Joel, 181, 190–91 linguistic materiality, 89 Lin Yutang, 219, 220–22 lipograms, 203, 233 Lissagaray, Prosper-Olivier, 234 literature: global literary histories, questioning of hierarchies of, 11–12; Goldsmith on, 168; literary evolution, 9, 236; literary influences, 114; literary production, copying’s centrality to, 14; literary value, shifts in, 157–58; literary works, authority of, 4; network model of world literary history, 94; Prigov on literary production, 84–85 lithography, 227 Little Coffins of Rejected Verse (Grobiki otrinutykh stikhov, Prigov), 87, 88

336 INDEX

Li Tuo, 96 Liu, Alan, 276n60 Liu, Lydia, 230 Liu Zongyuan, 215 Li Yu, 222f location. See place (location) “Log” (Bergvall), 148 Lo Kung-Yuan, 202 Lomax, Alan, 34, 39 London, England, anti-government demonstrations in, 232, 233; as cultural center, 118, 192; as imperial center, 25, 28, 29, 32, 54, 105 Lord, Albert, 38, 39 Lorde, Audre, 182–83 Lotman, Yuri, 70 L’Ouverture, Toussaint, 54 “Love Poem I Mistyped Because I Was Sleepy, A” (“Yi shou yin aikun zai shuru shi an cuo jian de qingshi,” Chen), 223 Lower Body poetry movement, 209 Low Poetry Movement, 209 Lu Xun, 211–12 Macbeth (Shakespeare), 250n39 machine translation, 223–28 Mackey, Nathaniel, 264n4 Mac Low, Jackson, 3 magnitizdat, 64, 65 Maher, Ciarán, 138 Mais, Roger, 31 “Making of the Drum, The” (Brathwaite), 41, 43, 45, 46, 48 Mandelstam, Osip, 66–67, 77, 257n14 MANI (Moscow Archive for New Art), 69, 75–77 manifesto form, 191–92, 209 “Mantra of Russian High Culture” (“Mantra vysokoi russkoi kul'tury,” Prigov), 74, 75 Mao Goes Pop exhibition, 95, 96 Mao style (MaoSpeak), 96 Marczewska, Kaja, 242n4 Marx, Karl, 188, 225–26 masculine privilege, 165 mash-ups, 1, 184

Masks (Brathwaite), 40–46, 52, 60, 254n134 masterpieces, conceptual writing and ideology of, 184 “Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House, The” (Lorde), 182 mastery, liberation’s relationship to, 183 McDougall, Bonnie, 286n55 McLuhan, Marshall, 39 McQueen, Butterfly, 173 meaning, transportability of, 218 Meddle English (Bergvall), 116–17, 131, 144–45 media: Brathwaite’s use of, 21–22; as cultural practices, 6, 24, 236; grassroots media, 7, 22–24, 62, 64–66; iterating waves of, 114–15; media institutions, Anglophone Caribbean cultural independence efforts and, 22–23; postcolonial history, relationship with, 25–26; specificities of, 27–28. See also technology Mellom Alex Gobulev og meg: Roman (Aasprong), 269n74 Melville, Herman, 10 Menard, Pierre (fict.), 13–14 Merchant of Venice, The (Shakespeare), 51–52 Middle English, lost orthography of, 138 Middle Passage, 33, 134 Middling English (Bergvall), 140–45, 141f, 142f, 143f Mighty Sparrow (Slinger Francisco), 31, 36–37 migrants, 133–34, 135, 139, 269n67 mimeography, 22–23, 53, 208f mimetic desire, 8, 11 Mimic Men, The (Naipaul), 25 Mini-buksy series (Prigov), 69, 71, 72, 80 minstrelsy, 166, 173, 178, 186 missile culture, Brathwaite on, 54, 55, 57 missing bodies, 133–49 “Miss Scarlett” (Place), 168, 171–76 Mitchell, Margaret, 166, 172, 173, 175 modernism: in China, 93–94, 96–97; estranging displacements of, 146;

337 INDEX

location of, 103, 105; mot juste in, 19, 106, 196, 200; newness versus sameness in, 10–15; Poundian, 95; as term, problems of, 92–93; wave and network as metaphors for spread of, 91–95, 114–15; Yang-Cayley collaboration and, 114 “Mona Lisa” (Yeats), 13 Mongrel Coalition Against Gringpo: artistic practices of, 155; artistic values of, shift in, 157; copy and politics of identity, commitment to, 154–55; double impact of, 238; Goldsmith-Place debate, intervention in, 180–92; introduction to, 18, 151–54; Place as target of, 169–71; publication of, 167; on white conceptual writers, 273n13 Mongrel Coalition Against Gringpo, works of: “The Best Conceptual Poem of the Year,” 181, 184–91, 280n134; “The Mongrel Coalition Killed Conceptualism,” 180–81; “The Ultimate Conceptualist Anthology,” 192 “Monique Wittig” (Bergvall), 127 montage: Brathwaite’s, 34; Eisenstein’s, 10; Mongrel Coalition’s, 184, 190–91, 281n135 Moretti, Franco, 8, 9, 93 “Morning of Acmeism, The” (“Utro akmeizma,” Mandelstam), 257n16 Morris, Adalaide, 270n103 Morris, Marianne, 125 Morris, William, 137 Moscow Archive for New Art (MANI), 69, 75–77 Moscow conceptualism, 70, 75–76, 77, 79–80, 258n23 Mother Poem (Brathwaite), 55–57, 60 mot juste, 19, 106, 196, 200 movable type, invention of, 230 multimedia, Barrel presentation and, 83 multitracking, 34, 251n70 Murray, Simon, 265n5 mythologies, of samizdat text, 75

Naipaul, V. S., 25 nam (name), 55, 57–58 names, transcriptions of, 201 “Nametracks” (Brathwaite), 55–60, 56f, 58f, 117, 149 “Naming” (Brathwaite), 46–49 National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), 171, 189–90 nation language, 21–22, 53, 53f, 57 Nation Language Poetry (History of the Voice, Brathwaite), 53, 53f NCAC (National Coalition Against Censorship), 171, 189–90 Neale, Emma, 2–3 “Negus” (Brathwaite), 45–47, 49, 58 neocolonialism, Brathwaite and, 51 network capitalism (network economy), 158, 168, 180, 228–29 networking, iterative poetics of, 196 Nevozmozhnaia kniga (The Impossible Book, Prigov), 69 New Labour (UK Labour Party), cultural policy of, 121 Newsletter (CAM), 36, 37 New York City: Brathwaite’s Segue reading in, 45–52; as cultural and imperial center, 3, 33, 60, 161, 162, 163, 192; Goldsmith in, 156; Tan Lin in, 230 Ngai, Sianne, 159 Nichol, Barrie Phillip (bpNichol), 125 Nielsen, Aldon, 273n14 Nketia, J. H. Kwabena, 40–45, 253n103 No. 111 2.7.93–10.20.96 (Goldsmith), 156, 160 node and link hypertext structures, 109, 110, 112 noise, 24, 200, 213, 218, 223, 227 “No Margins to This Page” (Bergvall), 126–27 Non-person Singular (Yang), 104 norms: normative social practices, 130; texts and, 131 “Notanda” (Philip), 148 Noth’rs (Bergvall and Cayley), 124, 267n31 Nowhere Is My Home (Lo), 202

338 INDEX

o (letter), Bergvall’s play with, 140–44 Oblong Collection (Prodolgovatyi sbornik, Prigov), 74–75 oceanic utopianism, 97 Odlum, George, 37 Old English, lost orthography of, 138 Olsen, Redell, 124, 125 Olson, Charles, 138 Onegin telegram (Prigov), 75 on-the-spot recordings, 30 orality and oral traditions. See speech and spoken word origins, search for, in Masks, 41 Orlando, Leoluca, 269n67 orthothetic, as term, meaning of, 180 “Oulipo” (Som), 201–7 Ouvroir de littérature potentielle (Oulipo; Workshop of Potential Literature), 3, 195, 202, 203, 206, 228, 233 Ouyang Jianghe, 287n73 overdubbing, 34, 251n70 Owen, Stephen, 92–96, 98, 197–98, 206–7 “Paden'e—neizmennyi sputnik strakha” (“Falling is the constant companion of fear,” Mandelstam), 257n16 Painful Cake (Linde), 181, 190–91 painting, impact of photography on, 11 paper sons, 201, 205 Parker, Charlie, 28 Parry, Milman, 38–39 parsley massacre, 116 Pater, Walter H., 13 Patton, Julie, 125 Perec, Georges, 228, 233 Perelman, Bob, 124, 197 peresechenie (intersection), 71 performance, nature of, 51 Performance Research journal, 267n31 performance writing, 116–50; body texts and, 126–33; conclusions on, 149–50; discussion of, 119–26; establishment of, at Dartington, 265n5; introduction to, 17, 116–18; iterative turn and, 134, 149; missing bodies, 133–49; tenets of, 135

periphery-center conflict, 8–9, 115, 192–93 Perloff, Marjorie, 151, 159, 171, 242n5, 285n51 Perot, Ross, 230 Perreault, John, 6 person, the, Prigov on, 83 Philip, M. NourbeSe, 147–48 phonograph. See record player photocopiers. See xerography photography: impact on painting, 11; iterative poetics of samizdat and, 77, 80f, 81, 84–85; and Pound, 219 phrase books, 213–14 piaobo (floating life; exile), 97, 98, 100 Picasso, Pablo, 10 “Picasso” (Stein), 145 Pidgin English, 219, 221 “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote” (Borges), 13–14 pink noise, 227 Pink Noise (Hsia Yü), 223–28, 224f, 230 Pinying (phonemic system app), 219–23, 220f PIPA (Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act, S. 968), 158 place (location): chu, 102–3; radical particularity of, 199; in theories of world literature, 103; as wavelike, 101, 103–4, 114–15; in Where the Sea Stands Still, 103, 105–6. See also home Place, Vanessa: blackface and, 173–74, 175, 186; on conceptual writing, 168, 175, 274n34; controversy over, 17–18, 152–54; copy and politics of identity, commitment to, 154–55; copying, use of, 174, 177–78; critiques of, 166; critiques of, response to, 171; debate with Goldsmith, Mongrel Coalition’s intervention in, 180–92; dystopianism of, 18, 153, 168, 176, 179, 183, 184, 190, 229; Goldsmith, comparison with, 168; Goldsmith, critique of, 165; as killer of poetry, 180–81, 280n133; on master-slave relation, 179–92; mentioned, 150; poetics of, 179; repetition, use of, 195–96; trolling by,

339 INDEX

169–76; Twitter, use of, 152, 169, 170, 189–90, 271n5, 277n81; Warholian/ avant-garde bullshit, use of, 176–77; working methods, 165 Place, Vanessa, works of: “(1957) THE BLACK AND WHITE MINSTREL SHOW (1978),” 178; Boycott, 3, 183; Gone with the Wind project (Place), 169–70, 171–74, 177, 189, 277nn80–81; La Medusa, 166; “Miss Scarlett,” 168, 171–76; Statement of Facts, 166, 168, 276n66 “Poem Behind the Poem, The” (Barnstone), 215 Poems of Osip Mandelstam II (Stikhi Osipa Mandel'shtama II, Yulikov), 77, 79f poetics: appropriative poetics in Latin American literature, 192, 283n178; of consumer exchange, 158–59; of copies and copying, 12–13; of critical regionalism, 199; of critical translation, 199; of emptiness, 215–16, 217; as epistemology, 52; feminist poetics, 126; field poetics, Olson on, 138; of hip-hop, 35; of racial mimicry, 172; of repetition, 195; of samizdat, 88–89. See also iterative poetics; poetry; individual poets Poetics of Emptiness (Stalling), 215–16 poetry: audio recording as medium for, 26; dub poetry, 5; Eliot on readings of, 27; Mongrel Coalition on, 181–82; Place and death of, 180–81; repetition in, 2; rhythms in, Eliot on recordings and, 26; rule-based, 195; translation poetry, 213–23, 227. See also copy poetry; poetics; titles of individual poems Poetry magazine, 168, 277n78 “Poetry of Drums, The” (Nketia), 40, 41 Poet’s Draft (Chernovik poeta, Prigov), 70, 72, 73f politics, question of relationship to aesthetics, 154, 181–82, 186–87, 272n11 polysystem theory, 9 Ponge, Francis, 127

pop art, Prigov on, 77, 79 popular music, versioning in, 5 postcolonialism: Brathwaite and, 60; postcolonial culture, creative iterations of, 25; postcolonial history, relationship with media, 25–26; postcolonial media, 22–23, 24, 116–17; radio and, 30. See also Brathwaite, Kamau “Postmodernism; or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism” (Jameson), 197 Pound, Ezra: antisemitism of, 178; Basic English, support for, 221; Chinese script, views on, 197; on modernism, 10; modernism of, 95; Orientalism of, 194; photography, engagement with, 287n75; Som and, 203; textual juxtapositions of, 219; translations by, 135, 137, 218; updatings of, 217–18; Yang and Cayley and, 105–9 power relations, 182, 192. See also slavery Practical Chinese Reader: A Revised Grammar Book (Beijing Languages Institute), 215 predigital media technologies: postcolonial uses of, 24; in samizdat culture, 64 “Prelude” to Masks (Brathwaite), 41 Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act (PIPA, S. 968), 158 Price-Mars, Jean, 39 Prigov, Dmitri: at Barrel discussion, 81–83; iterative poetics of samizdat, use of, 70–71; Komaromi on, 88–89; Little Coffins series, 87, 88; Mandelstam and, 67; MANI, contributions to, 75–77, 76f, 79; mentioned, 2, 16; Mini-buksy series, 69, 71, 72, 80–81; repetition, use of, 72, 74–75, 238; rules, use of, 195; samizdat copy poetics of, 117–18; samizdat principle’s influence on, 90; typescript and carbon paper, use of, 62, 63f, 64–66; versionings by, 13

340 INDEX

Prigov, Dmitri, views of: on fetishization, 88; on Moscow conceptualism, 258n23; on reproductions, 62; on samizdat culture, 80; on samizdat in postsamizdat era, 84–85, 87 Prigov, Dmitri, works of: Alphabets (Azbuki) series, 70–72, 258n27; Deletion and Growth (Udalenie i narastanie), 67, 68f, 69, 72; Eighteenth Alphabet: Stone and Circles on Water (Vosemnadtsataia azbuka: Kamen' i krugi na vode), 62, 63f, 64–67, 69, 70–72, 101, 238; Facsimile Reproduction of Dmitri Aleksandrovich Prigov’s Self-Made Book “Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin” with Drawings on the Margins of the Work by Aleksandr Florensky, 84–88, 86f; The Impossible Book (Nevozmozhnaia kniga), 69; Little Coffins of Rejected Verse (Grobiki otrinutykh stikhov), 87, 88; “Mantra of Russian High Culture” (“Mantra vysokoi russkoi kul'tury”), 74, 75; Mini-buksy series, 69, 71, 72, 80; Oblong Collection (Prodolgovatyi sbornik), 74–75; Poet’s Draft (Chernovik poeta), 70, 72, 73f; screw (vint) poems, 74, 75; Seventh Alphabet (Using the Prigov-Monastyrskii Method) (Sed’maia azbuka [po metodu Prigova-Monastyrskogo]), 72, 74, 74f; Telegrams (Telegrammy), 75, 76f; “Verses for George” (“Stikhi dlia Dzhordzhika”), 74, 75; Versographies (Stikhogrammy), 81 printed letters, tactile quality of, 269n74 Prison-House of Language, The (Jameson), 234 Prodolgovatyi sbornik (Oblong Collection, Prigov), 74–75 production, reproduction versus, 10 Prospero (Tempest character), 57, 59, 60, 237, 290n18

prosumption economy, 2, 10, 154, 157–59, 161, 163–65, 167–68, 170, 177, 180, 191, 273n12 Protestantism, on imprinting, 196 protests, as repetitions of power relations, 182 Prynne, J. H., 125 puns, 129–33, 221 Pushkin, Alexander, 75, 84–88 Qiu Zhijie, 286n58 “Quiet Night Thoughts” (“Jing ye si,” Li Bai), 201–4, 206, 209–10 Qu Leilei, 104 race and racism: conceptual writing as racist, 152, 178; entrapping logic of, Place and, 179, 182–83; Jim Crow segregation, 169; Maya Lin and, 230; racial politics, 152; racist discourse, white conceptual poetry’s tolerance for, 169; repetition and, 152–53; segregation, racist ideology of, 177; structural racism, persistence of, 173; in Sweden, 190; use of, to shock, 170. See also conceptual writing; Mongrel Coalition Against Gringpo radio broadcasts, 23, 26, 28–33 rain, dust and, 47–48 Randall, Alice, 177 Rauschenberg, Robert, 120 reaccentuation, 13, 70 readers: of Bergvall’s texts, 122, 129, 131, 132, 133; for Caribbean Voices, 28; in Coleridge, 123; of Eliot’s poetry, 27; performances by, 133; of samizdat, 62, 64–66, 69; of Where the Sea Stands Still, 100, 110, 112 reading: as performance, 119; Prigov on, 84–85 read-write technologies, 14, 15, 22–23, 34, 64 recapitulation, 237–38 recombination, generative potential of, 195 recording(s): audio recordings, 22–23, 26, 27–28; Brathwaite’s use of, 23–24;

341 INDEX

of Eliot, 26; importance of, 38–39; of Lo, 205; on-the-spot, 30; printed texts versus, 26–28, 38, 39, 50; transcriptions versus, Brathwaite on, 38; versioning in, 5. See also tape recording record player, 6, 26–28, 33–34, 249n36 Reed, Brian, 173, 176, 276n60 reel-to-reel tape. See tape recording regional art, samizdat and pop art as, 81 reiterations, of Brathwaite’s works, 59–60 relational aesthetics (esthétique relationnelle), 122–23 relational antagonism, art of, 123 remixes and remixing, 6–7, 34, 44, 159, 184, 188 Render, Michael (“Killer Mike”), 181, 187, 188–89 renquan (human rights), 198 repetition (iteration): anticolonialism, media revolution and, 22–23; characteristics of, 3, 152–53, 234–35; in Chinese thought, 96; crises in authority and, 196, 200; culture, role in, 1–2, 77; with difference, 46; double meaning of, 4, 52, 153, 237–38; embodiment of, 148; exact repetitions, 14; Goldsmith-Place debate over, 180; in institutions, 4; iterability, 127, 130, 243n14, 249n30, 234–35; male sexual violence and, 166; meaningless repetition, 226; mechanical modes of, 200; multiple histories of, 17; nature of, 91–92; new technologies and, 61, 233; norms, impact on, 9; perpetuation of tradition through, 206; in poetry, 2; poetry of, Searle and, 195; in political speech, 189; possibilities of, 33, 123; Prigov on, 82–83; reactionary potential of, 182; revolution and, 188, 232–39; samizdat principle of, 66, 70–71; Searle on, 212; serial iteration, 74–75; Stein on, 123, 243n14; stuttering, 45–46, 136, 138, 148–49; of textual transformations, 109; variations on, 130; writing as, 3. See also copies and

copying; iterative poetics; iterative turn; versioning repetition (iteration), poets’ use of: Bergvall, 117, 123–24, 126–28, 130, 133–40, 145–46; Bök, 232–33, 238; Bonney, 232–34, 238; Brathwaite, 48, 55, 152, 237; Cayley, 114; Eliot, 27; Hsia Yü, 227–29; Tan Lin, 231; Mongrel Coalition, 188–89; Prigov, 74–75, 90, 238; Yang, in Where the Sea Stands Still, 99, 100–3, 112–14 reproduction: production versus, 10; samizdat mode of, Prigov on, 85; xerography, 22–23, 24, 55. See also copies and copying; recording(s) Retallack, Joan, 18, 194, 195, 237 revolutions, 232–39, 234 rhythms: African rhythm, in Brathwaite, 49; postcolonial, in Ghana, 29; rhythmic repetition, language and, 45–46; as “riddims,” 26–27, 50 Richards, I. A., 221 Richards, Sam, 265n5 “riddims,” 26–27, 50 Rights of Passage (Brathwaite), 35–36, 37, 40, 44, 47, 49, 254n134 Rimbaud, Arthur, 232–33, 238 Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Coleridge), 122 River Elegy (He shang, TV series), 97 Roach, Eric, 32 “Rocking-Horse Winner, The” (Lawrence), 156 Rohlehr, Gordon, 36–37 Rubinstein, Lev, 16, 76, 78f rule-based poetry, 195 Russia and Soviet Union: appropriative poetics in, 192; conceptual art in, 66; Russian conceptualism, 13, 89; Russian formalist theory, 9; tape recording technology in, 64, 256n3. See also samizdat Saharan dust clouds, 47 Saint-Amour, Paul K., 274n26

342 INDEX

sameness: differences versus, 8; historical hallucination of, 12 samizdat, 62–90; carbon-copy reproduction of, 62, 63f, 64– 66, 69, 86; conclusions on, 89–90; essential qualities of, 66; fragile bodies and, 88–89; institutions of, 66; introduction to, 16–17, 62– 67; iterative turn and, 236; myths of, 75; official Soviet culture, mimicry of, 70; in postsamizdat era, Prigov on, 84–85, 88; samizdat principle, 16, 67–81, 82–83, 85, 89–90; samizdat texts, 71; as term, 64 sampling, 2, 5, 35; Mongrel Coalition’s use of, 185, 188 Saussure, Ferdinand de, 258n23 Savacou (journal): Brathwaite writing in, 20; Xerox advertisement in, 20, 21f, 23; “The Youth” special issue of, 252n91 Savacou (press), 53, 53f, 59f, 255n157 Say: “Parsley” (Bergvall), 61, 116, 117, 123 screw (vint) poems (Prigov), 74, 75 sea (hai), 97–100, 105, 134 Seafarer, The (Old English poem), 135–36, 148 Searle, John: on Chinese, 197, 198; mentioned, 226; on repetition, 212; thought experiment of, 18, 194–95; on unthinking technology, 195–96 Seascape (Seestück, Bäcker), 135 Second Sex, The (Beauvoir), 182, 183 Sed'maia azbuka (po metodu PrigovaMonastyrskogo) (Seventh Alphabet [Using the Prigov-Monastyrskii Method] Prigov), 72, 74, 74f Seestück (Seascape, Bäcker), 135 segregation, racist ideology of, 177 Segue Series (Bowery Poetry Club), 45–52 selva oscura (dark wood), 137, 138 Selvon, Samuel, 30–31 Seven American Deaths and Disasters (Goldsmith), 167

Seven Controlled Vocabularies and Obituary 2004: The Joy of Cooking (Lin), 229–30, 289n118 Seventh Alphabet (Using the PrigovMonastyrskii Method) (Sed'maia azbuka [po metodu PrigovaMonastyrskogo], Prigov), 72, 74, 74f sex and sexuality: Bergvall’s puns and, 129–30, 132, 133; norms of, 130; sexual desire, consumerism and, 225; sexual violence, 166 Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Beatles), 6 Shakespeare, William, 22, 51–52, 57, 250n39 Shakur, Assata Olugbala, 188 shanzhai (“fakes”), 198 shapeshifting, 128–29 “Shepherd” (Brathwaite), 48, 51 Sherlock (Mac OSX translation program), 223, 225 shibboleths, 17, 61, 116, 117, 118, 149. See also performance writing Shklovsky, Viktor, 9, 146, 226, 227, 258n23 “Signature Event Context” (“Signature événement contexte,” Derrida), 127, 130, 234–35 silence, noises in, 213, 223 Silliman, Ron, 171 singularity, generalization versus, 145 “Sir Galahad and the Islands” (Brathwaite), 30–32, 37 skipping stones, 32, 58, 62 slavery, 41, 51, 166, 179–92, 237 Snelson, Danny, 289n118 social media: attention economy and, 18, 160, 165–67, 170, 178; bullshit and, 176; calling out of racism on, 151, 152; copy practices of, as means of liberation, 191; Facebook, 158, 159, 164; “hands up, don’t shoot” meme, 181, 190–91, 281n135; identity construction via, copying and, 154–56; Mongrel Coalition’s use of, 152, 183, 189; as prosumption economy, 2, 10, 154, 157–59, 161, 163–65, 167–68, 170, 177,

343 INDEX

180, 191, 273n12; Twitter, Place’s use of, 152, 169, 170, 189–90, 271n5, 277n81 Socrates, 196 Soldatmarkedet (Aasprong), 136 Soliloquy (Goldsmith), 160, 162, 163, 165 “Solo for Trumpet” (Brathwaite), 33 Som, Brandon: Chineseness and, 231; diversity critiques and, 285n51; mentioned, 18, 199; repetition, use of, 213, 229; tradition, relation to, 212–13 Som, Brandon, works of: “Coaching Papers,” 201, 204; “Oulipo,” 201–7; The Tribute Horse, 201, 204, 285n51 “some,” Bergvall’s, Stein’s, and Williams’s play with, 145 SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act, H.R. 3261), 158 So Spoke the Uncle (Ainsi parla l’oncle, Price-Mars), 39 Soukop, Willi, 120 sound recordings. See recording(s) Soviet Union. See Russia and Soviet Union Spahr, Juliana, 276n66 “Spain 1937” (Auden), 189 “Sparrow and the Language of Calypso” (Rohlehr), 36–37 speech and spoken word (orality and oral traditions), 21–22, 36–37, 38–52, 127, 139 Spivak, Gayatri, 7 Stalling, Amy, 221, 222f Stalling, Jonathan: meaning, locus of, 221; mentioned, 18–19, 199; Pinying phonemic system app, 219–23, 220f; poetics of, 223, 287n80; repetition, use of, 229 Stalling, Jonathan, works of: “Five Variations on a Poem by Li Yu to the Tune of ‘Night Crow Caws’” (with Li Yu and Amy Stalling), 221, 222f; Grotto Heaven, 215–16; Yingelishi, 213–19, 220–21, 223 Statement of Facts (Place), 166, 168, 276n66

Stein, Gertrude, 3, 10, 123, 128, 137, 145, 243n14 Sterne, Jonathan, 23 Stiegler, Bernard, 180 “Stikhi dlia Dzhordzhika” (“Verses for George,” Prigov), 74, 75 Stikhi Osipa Mandel’shtama II (Poems of Osip Mandelstam II, Yulikov), 77, 79f Stikhogrammy (Versographies, Prigov), 81 St. Lucia, Brathwaite in, 30, 32 Stone (Kamen', Mandelstam), 67 Stone and Circles on Water (Prigov), 62, 63f, 64–67, 69, 70–72, 101, 238 stones: Mandelstam’s allusions to, 257n16; skipping stones in “Calypso,” 32, 58, 62; in Stone and Circles on Water, 71–72; symbolism of, 67 Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA, H.R. 3261), 158 stuttering, 45–46, 136, 138, 148–49 subjectivity, Goldsmith on, 161 sung word, centrality to Caribbean culture, 36–37 Sutherland, Keston, 125 Swanzy, Henry, 28–29 Sweden, racism in, 190 Sycorax (Tempest character), 57, 59, 60 Sycorax video-style, 21, 57, 59, 60, 117 Tagore, Rabindranath, 120 Tang, Xiaobing, 93 Tang shi sanbai shou (Three Hundred Tang Poems), 211 Tang (Yi Sha), 209–11 Tang Xiaodu, 263n16 “Tano” (Brathwaite), 48 Tape Poems (Costa and Perreault), 6 tape recorders, production in USSR, 256n3 tape recording: Brathwaite’s use of, 23–25, 33–38, 44; fluidity and versioning with, 55; impact on literary production, 14, 91; magnitizdat, 64; McLuhan and, 40; mentioned, 236; Nketia’s use of, 40; transistor, 23, 29, 34

344 INDEX

Tartu circle (school of semiotic theory), 70 Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich, 75 technology: Brathwaite’s use of, 61, 256n164; China and Chinese language, connections with, 197–98; impact on repetition, 5; media technology, impact of, 196; predigital media technologies, postcolonial uses of, 24; read-write technologies, 23; repetition and, 61, 233; technological entrapment, 200; technological mediation, power imbalances in, 55; technologies of reproduction, 12, 214; text recognition software, 228–29; word-processing software, 21–22, 60. See also globalization and technology; media; recording(s); specific technologies, e.g., xerography Telegrams (Telegrammy, Prigov), 75, 76f Tempest, The (Shakespeare), 22, 57 Templeton, Alexis, 185, 188 text recognition software, 228–29 texts: bodies versus, 125, 126, 130–31, 133; born in translation, 95, 115, 196, 200; from the Internet, nature of, 225–26; Prigov on, 71; textual processing, iterative poetics of, 196 th (digraph), 139 “This Is the Voice of Algeria” (“Ici la voix de l’Algérie,” Fanon), 29–30 thorn glyph (þ), 138–39 Three Hundred Tang Poems (Tang shi sanbai shou), 211 “Ti Cui yiren shan ting” (“Dedicated to the Hermit Cui,” Qian Qi), 108 tidalectics, 54–55, 58, 59, 59f, 237 timelessness, 98, 106 Today (Jintian, literary journal), 208 “To Elsie” (Williams), 145 Tolstoy, Leo, 226 totalitarianism, impact of new media technologies on, 14 tradition, undermining of cultural location of, 200 “Tradition and Us” (“Chuantong yu women,” Yang), 97

transcriptions, recordings and, 38–39 transistor: radio, 29–30, 33; tape recorder, 23, 29, 34 translation: homophonic, 201–7, 233; Hsia Yü’s iterative poetry of, 223–27; iterative poetics of, 196, 199–200, 209; noise of, 213, 218; texts born in, 95, 115, 196, 200; translation poetry, 213–23, 227 transliterations, 201–15 transnationalism, technologies of reproduction and, 12 transparencies, Hsia Yü’s use of, 224 Tretyakov, Sergei, 10 trolls and trolling, 168–78, 190–91, 277n83 “Trumpet Player” (Hughes), 33 Tudor, David, 120 Turing, Alan, 194 twenty-first century. See globalization and technology Twenty-Four Tales (Morris), 137 “Twist, The” (Brathwaite), 49–52 “Twist, The” (Checker), 50 Twitter, 10; Mongrel Coalition’s use of, 155, 171, 191; Place’s use of, 152, 169, 170, 189–90, 271n5, 277n81 Tynyanov, Yury, 9 typescript reproduction, 14, 62, 63f, 64–66, 69 typewriters: Brathwaite’s use of, 36, 54; Chinese, 219–20; in samizdat, use of, 16, 62, 64, 69, 71, 84, 236 Tyutchev, Fedor, 67 UbuWeb website, 18, 156–58, 159, 165, 273n19, 276n60 Udalenie i narastanie (Deletion and Growth, Prigov), 67, 68f, 69, 72 “Ultimate Conceptualist Anthology, The” (Mongrel Coalition), 192 Ulysses (Joyce), 12, 162–63 uncreative writing. See conceptual writing Understanding Media (McLuhan), 39 United States: judicial system, pretense of objectivity of, 187; racial politics in,

345 INDEX

152, 179; slavery in, 166–67; structural racism in, 168 universal access: Chinese versus English as language of, 199, 200, 220, 222–23, 229; Hsia Yü and, 229; poetics of emptiness and, 216; repetition and, 229 “Unpacking My Library” (Benjamin), 160–61 utopianism: Goldsmith’s, 18, 153–54, 164, 168, 183, 184, 191; Hayles’s, 198; Lorde’s, 183; Mongrel Coalition’s, 18, 154, 183–84, 191 “Utro akmeizma” (“The Morning of Acmeism,” Mandelstam), 257n16 Vanden Bossche, Chris R., 274n26 “Verses for George” (“Stikhi dlia Dzhordzhika,” Prigov), 74, 75 versioning: Bergvall’s, 127–28, 135; Brathwaite’s, 5–6, 27–28, 34–35, 38, 40–52, 53–60; cultural authority and, 7; homophonic translation and, 205; new media technologies and, 14; of print texts, 64; technology and, 5–6. See also repetition Versographies (Stikhogrammy, Prigov), 81 “Via” (Bergvall), 137 voicelessness, 48, 49 Voices of Ghana (Swanzy, ed.), 29, 31–32, 33, 40–41 Voices of Ghana, review of (Brathwaite), 29, 30, 32, 33, 40 Volpert, Timothy, 271n6 Vosemnadtsataia azbuka: Kamen' i krugi na vode (Eighteenth Alphabet: Stone and Circles on Water, Prigov), 62, 63f, 64–67, 69, 70–72, 101, 238 Walcott, Derek, 31, 32, 251n60 Walmsley, Anne, 250n48 Wang, Dorothy J., 164, 275n57, 276n58, 285n51 Warhol, Andy, 3, 6 Warholian bullshit, 176 Waste Land, The (Eliot), 48

waves: as metaphor for world literature, 91–95, 114–15; place, as wavelike, 101, 103–4; in Where the Sea Stands Still, 102, 103; Yang and Cayley’s interest in and use of, 92, 94, 109–10 Weaver, Warren, 221, 222 Weir, Allison, 182 Wellsweep Press, 104 West Africa, connection with Caribbean, 38, 41, 46, 47, 50 Western art, as regional art, 77 Western conceptualism, 79–80, 89 “What Do We Mean by Performance Writing?” (Bergvall), 123–24 “What the Thunder Said” (Eliot), 48 Where the Sea Stands Still (Dahai tingzhi zhi chu, Yang): description of, 94–95; dual language publication of, 94, 98; form of, 100–1; location in, 103–4, 105–6; publication of, 104; repetitions in, 99, 100–3, 114; sea motives in, 97–100; section links in, map of, 110, 111f; timelessness in, 106; the wave in, 109–10; word play in, 100 Where the Sea Stands Still (poetry collection, Yang), 101–4 Where the Sea Stands Still (Yang and Cayley digital adaptation), 94–95, 104–14, 112f, 119–20, 265n54, 265n56 whiteness: white conceptual writers, Mongrel Coalition on, 273n13; white privilege, 164–65, 174, 191; white supremacy, 181, 182, 184–85, 189 whiteout texts, 173, 269n74 Whitman, Walt, 5 Whitney, Dorothy, 120 “Wichita Vortex Sutra” (Ginsberg), 6 Williams, William Carlos, 145 Wilson, Darren, 181, 187 Wind Done Gone, The (Randall), 177 Windward Islands Broadcasting Service, 30, 32 Wine Flying (Cayley), 108, 119 “Wings of a Dove” (Brathwaite), 50 Wittig, Monique, 127, 129 “Woman in the Chinese Room, The” (Retallack), 194

346 INDEX

women’s bodies, objectification of, 131–33, 153 word-processing software, 21–22, 60 Workshop of Potential Literature (Oulipo; Ouvroir de littérature potentielle), 3, 195, 202, 203, 206, 228, 233 world iterature, 7–10 world literature: center-periphery relation in, 8–9, 28, 77, 91, 115, 118, 149; circulation theories of, 8–9, 114–15, 245n39; copy works, literary change and, 7, 9–10, 13–14, 192–93; location in theories of, 103; polysystem theory and, 9; wave and network as metaphors for, 91–95, 114–15; world literary history, 93–94; world poetry, 92, 96, 98, 197, 206, 232–39; worldsystems theory of, 8, 9 world-systems theory, 8, 9 World Wide Web, growth of, 273n17. See also hypertext structures; Internet; network capitalism (network economy) writing: as repetition, 3; types of, in Dartington performance writing program, 121; written language, audio recordings versus, 26–28, 38, 39, 50 xerography (photocopies), 22–23, 24, 55. See also copies and copying Xerox, advertisement in Savacou for copying, 20, 21f, 23 “Xuan guan” (Ouyang Jianghe), 287n73 Xu Zhimo, 10 Yang-Cayley collaboration: conclusions on, 114–15; cross-cultural poetics of, 117; introduction to, 17, 91–94; Where

the Sea Stands Still, 1997 adaptation of, 104–14, 112f, 119–20, 265n54, 265n56 Yang Lian: attacks on, 208; Cayley, association with, 104; double bind of Chinese modernism, response to, 97; location, confronting of problem of, 96; mentioned, 2; poetics of, 104, 106; repetition, use of, 99, 100–3, 114; on timelessness, 106; on Where the Sea Stands Still, 97, 98; zhi, exploration of, 107. See also Where the Sea Stands Still; Yang-Cayley collaboration Yang Lian, works of: Banpo, 96, 97; Non-person Singular, 104; “Tradition and Us” (“Chuantong yu women”), 97; Where the Sea Stands Still (Dahai tingzhi zhi chu), 94–115, 120; Yi, 97 Yanglish, 98 Yau, John, 285n51 Yeats, W. B., 13 Yeh, Michelle (Xi Mi), 262n16 Yépez, Heriberto, 192 yi (one), 106 Yi (Yang), 97 Yiannopoulos, Milo, 290n20 Yingelishi (Stalling), 213–19, 220–21, 223 Yi Sha, 18, 199, 209–11, 209–13, 229 “Yi shou yin aikun zai shuru shi an cuo jian de qingshi” (“A Love Poem I Mistyped Because I Was Sleepy,” Chen), 223 Yo Yo, 92 Yulikov, Alexander, 16, 76–77, 79f Zong! (Philip), 147–49, 270n103 Zürn, Unica, 128, 132, 133 þ (thorn glyph), 138–39