the most ambitious & serious account of the dynamics underlying emergent poetics
Ron Silliman
Notes on Conceptualisms, the blank edition
Robert Fitterman
Vanessa Place
December 2012
With its bold blank cover, specially designed by Ugly Duckling Presse to enhance the object-quality of this milestone of contemporary poetics, this special edition of Notes on Conceptualisms (UDP, 2009) is based on a historic Conceptualist book (we’re not divulging which one). Enacting the conceptualist concept of echo, we haven’t changed a single word in the text. All 81 copies are signed and numbered by the authors.
For more information or to purchase the regular edition of Notes on Conceptualisms please click here.
About the Authors
Robert Fitterman is the author of 15 books of poetry including This Window Makes Me Feel (UDP, 2018), Nevermind (Wonder Books, 2016), Rob’s Word Shop (UDP, forthcoming, 2018), No Wait, Yep. Definitely Still Hate Myself (UDP, 2014), Holocaust Museum (Counterpath, 2013, and Veer [London] 2012), now we are friends (Truck Books, 2010), Rob the Plagiarist (Roof Books, 2009), war, the musical (Subpress, 2006), and Metropolis—a long poem in 4 separate volumes, and is the co-author of Notes on Conceptualisms (UDP, 2009). He has collaborated with several visual artists, including Serkan Ozkaya, Nayland Blake, Fia Backström, Tim Davis and Klaus Killisch, and is the founding member of the international artists and writers collective, Collective Task. He teaches at New York University and is a member of the writing faculty of the Milton Avery School of the Arts at Bard College.
Vanessa Place was the first poet to perform in the Whitney Biennial, and has published numerous books of poetry and prose, including Boycott and Notes on Conceptualisms (with Robert Fitterman) from Ugly Duckling Presse. Performance venues include the Getty Villa (Los Angeles); Museum of Modern Art (New York); and Garage Museum (Moscow), among others. Her art work has been exhibited at MAK Center/Schindler House (Los Angeles); Denver Museum of Contemporary Art; the Broad Museum (East Lansing, MI); the Kitchen (New York), Cage Gallery (New York), and Various Small Fires (Los Angeles). Place also works as a criminal defense attorney.
Praise
For those not familiar with conceptualist practices in poetry, I can recommend few better places to start than Notes on Conceptualisms.
Thom Donovan, bomblog
But it's a book you're going to want to carry around with you as you go about your daily business, being the most ambitious & serious account of the dynamics underlying emergent poetics in the United States I've encountered in years.
Ron Silliman
The petite, wallet-sized book fits perfectly to that impulse that the tree, in fact, did fall in the forest. And, you should go see where the hell it fell.
Ken Walker, Coldfront
In the News
Publication Details
Special Edition
Perfect-bound. 80 pp, 4.5 x 6 in
Publication Date: December 17 2012
Distribution: Direct Only
Series: Dossier