This book examines Uncreative Writing-the catch-all term to describe Neo-Conceptualism, Flarf and related avant-garde movements in contemporary North American poetry-against a decade of controversy. David Kaufman analyzes texts by Kenneth Goldsmith, Vanessa Place, Robert Fitterman, Ara Shirinyan, Craig Dworkin, Dan Farrell and Katie Degentesh to demonstrate that Uncreative Writing is not a revolutionary break from lyric tradition as its proponents claim. Nor is it a racist, reactionary capitulation to neo-liberalism as its detractors argue. Rather, this monograph shows that Uncreative Writing´s real innovations and weaknesses become clearest when read in the context of the very lyric that it claims to have left behind.
