Articles
Literature in the Land of the Inherently Cute
- the search for literary crisis (Practically) all political writing engages in representation and a form of adjudication – i.e. “picking a side”. Classic social realist writing of capitalist societies not only represents the exploited classes, but furthermore represents them against their mortal enemy, the bourgeoise classes; nationalist literature not only represents a certain... »
The Art of Any Impact
The most important thing to keep in mind during a fistfight (or while writing a poem) isn’t what to do with your arms and knuckles, but where to place your feet. If you keep them too close together, you’re liable to fall over – and if you keep them too far apart you leave... »
Short story: May Oral Gnarr Annualize?
Municipal decree stardate 01012021-001 — January 1st, 2021. State anarcho-surreo-separatist municipality of central Laugavegur and the united TGIFs of the greater eurafrican kingdom. Citizens of love and the Tao! I beseech you! Hark, hark! Hear, here! Lo, lo! Whiff! Feel! Taste! Orgasm! I write you now to say: Another decade gone *poof!* with all... »
This is Your Brain on Crack Cocaine
Each year, for about eight weeks, Icelandic book culture loses its cool and turns into a crazed media circus. When the clock strikes ‘october’ literature suddenly gets two-handedly drowned, literally strangled, with attention – having been mostly ignored or patronizingly shrugged off for the previous 43 weeks of the year (the final, remaining week,... »
So is The Wasteland
Oh, alright, I’ll admit it: I don’t understand most poetry. It baffles me. I read it, shaking my head and scowling. I don’t even understand my own poetry. Objectively speaking, most of it’s just nonsense – like how many ‘P’s or ‘S’s can I fit into a sentence? How about if I jumble up... »
Future Perfect Poetry
When this text is eventually published the world will know who received the 2010 Nobel Prize for Literature. It will have been announced yesterday. The person in question will already be lauded worldwide, in today’s newspapers next Friday, with a few dissenting voices perhaps mentioning cultural politics and even fewer voices claiming that prize-giving... »
Quiet, You Ignorant Booby!
Anything an author does (or says) is viable to be used as evidence against (or for) her (or him). Their actions and words are commonly seen as shedding an invaluable light on the work they’ve given the world – and to a certain extent this is of course true. It’s hard to understand the... »
Mock Duck Mandarin
– the sound and the fury Talk given at the Sound Poetry Seminar in Kuopio, Finland, 4 September 2010. I I tend to write three general kinds of poetry which I keep more or less separated in the writing practice, although the borders tend to blur before publication. First there’s the poetry meant for... »
Making Perfect Sense
Poetry is the art of the illogical, or even anti-intellectual, performed with the tools of logic and intellectual zealotry: language. Poetry is an invoker of feeling, or more correctly, perhaps, sensation and/or experience – while simultaneously being a way of thinking, of “catching yourself thinking” and “noticing what you notice” as Allen Ginsberg called... »
Experimentalism is a humanism
A few days ago (the rather awful) writer’s magazine Writer’s Digest tweeted the following: “Free short story competition to raise awareness for those suffering from depression”. Followed by an url. Now, being the cold-hearted asshole I am, this made me chuckle. I’m sorry for it, I truly am – I don’t mean to belittle... »
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