Conceptualisms in Crisis: The Fate of Late Conceptual Poetry

Conceptual poetry, widely considered to be one of the twenty-first century’s preeminent avant-gardes, is now under attack. Kenneth Goldsmith’s failed performance “The Body of Michael Brown” has thrown conceptualism into crisis—especially in regards to the racial politics of appropriation. Nevertheless, works such as M. NourbeSe Philip’s Zong! and Claudia Rankine’s Citizen show how conceptual techniques can effectively respond to racial traumas. Similarly, Chilean poet Carlos Soto Román’s textual appropriations protest against state-sponsored murder and suggest new modes of political critique from the global South. Moving beyond a North American context and disentangling the conceptualisms of the movement’s most high-profile practitioners from late conceptual projects by writers of color demonstrate how conceptual poetry is not dying, as some claim, but evolving along different lines of lineage.