Kenneth Goldsmith: Theory

"I used to be an artist; then I became a poet; then a writer. Now when asked, I simply refer to myself as a word processor," Kenneth Goldsmith (born 1961) writes in "Theory." The acclaimed conceptual poet, who is the founder and editor of UbuWeb, a professor of Uncreative Writing at the University of Pennsylvania and the former host of a weekly radio show at WFMU, was also appointed MoMA's very first Poet Laureate in 2013. Goldsmith may be a word processor, but he has also proven to be a highly influential literary figure over the past two decades. His latest publication, "Theory," is a series of 500 texts-from poems to aphoristic thoughts to short stories-published on 500 sheets of paper and gathered unbound as a paper ream. This artist's book is the first of Goldsmith's publications to consolidate his diverse practices-from the radio to the Internet to his "uncreative" writing-in a single volume.