Doggerel for the Masses: A Post-Scandal BlazeVOX Booke by Kent Johnson

These various pieces, initially published in journals by Craig Dworkin under the name of “Kent Johnson” (with exception of the tour de force Afterword, presented here for the first time), follow from his call, in the Introductory essay to Against Expression: An Anthology of Conceptual Writing (Northwestern UP, 2010):

Signing a text that one hasn’t written will surely become less remarkable, and the next frontier of propriety will materialize when conceptual writing antagonizes the institutions of poetry by signing for others under texts that they have not written.

As such this book represents both the latest, most advanced gesture of Conceptual authorial experiment, and a fatal send-up of the actual Mr. Johnson, perhaps the most contemptible figure in contemporary American letters. If poetry has, until now, been fifty years behind Art, it is now at least fifteen minutes ahead.

—Vanessa Place

Helen Vendler recently referred (letting off not a little pent-up steam) to the “Mickey-Mouse-Ears avant-gardism of U.S. Conceptual Poetry.” Well, here’s a riposte to that, Dame Helen: Because Craig Dworkin’s Doggerel for the Masses (“by” Kent Johnson!) wears the golden helmet of Achilles, whose antennae listening-mechanisms shoot into the heavens beyond Pluto. Hold onto your Hats, Boys and Girls; it’s going to be a wild ride!

—Kenneth Goldsmith

Kent Johnson received his Master’s degree from the Poetics program at the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied under Kenny Goldsmith. While at the University of Pennsylvania, he helped establish Jacket2 and (under the supervision of Professor Goldsmith) managed and edited the audio recordings collection at PennSound. He lives in Paris, France, and in Freeport, Illinois, where he works, during winters, for the Stephenson County Sanitation Department. Though he has published nearly thirty other books, this is his first book of poetry.

Book Information:

· Paperback: 100 pages

· Binding: Perfect-Bound

· Publisher: BlazeVOX [books] 

· ISBN: 978-1-60964-084-2

$16

Doggerel for the Masses by … by BlazeVOX [books]