I saw the poet Christian Bök read the other night and I have not yet digested the event. He appears to be a very nice person and this is not negligible. The work, although interesting, seemed clever but cold.
Some of the things I appreciated were his interest in French avant-garde writers, which I share, his knowledge of them, which I admire, and his excellent voice, which is better trained than he modestly admits. He has an uncanny ability to discern and reproduce phonemes. He can speak the alien language he created for a television program, and it is very beautiful. He is able to recite Kurt Schwitters’ Dadaist sonata Ursonate, which I like very much.
However: he seemed at times to be repeating some early twentieth century experiments, and while I admired his virtuousity, I was less impressed than I might have been had his work seemed more original to me.
I was the most interested in what he had to say after the reading: poets are like scientists, working in the laboratory of language, to discover the possibilities. This is not original, either, but it is not said enough. Bök said it very well, and his performance demonstrated it.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 