Language to cover a page : the early writings of Vito Acconci / edited by Craig Dworkin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Acconci, Vito, 1940-2017.

Contributor:

Dworkin, Craig Douglas.

Class of 1897 Book Fund.

Series:

MIT Press writing art series

The MIT Press writing art series

Language:

English

Physical Description:

xviii, 411 pages ; 29 cm.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, [2006]

Summary:

Pioneering conceptual artist Vito Acconci began his career as a poet. In the 1960s, before beginning his work in performance and video art, Acconci studied at the Iowa Writers Workshop and published poems in journals and chapbooks. Almost all of this work remains unknown; much of it appeared in the self-produced magazines of the Lower East Side's mimeo revolution, and many other pieces were never published. Language to Cover a Page collects these writings for the first time and not only shows Acconci to be an important experimental writer of the period, but demonstrates the continuity of his early writing with his later work in film, video, and performance.

Language to Cover a Page documents a key moment in the unprecedented intersection of artists and poets in the late 1960s-as seen in the Dwan Gallery's series of "Language" shows (1967-1970) and in Acconci's own journal 0 to 9. Indeed, as Acconci moved from the poetry scene to the art world, his poetry became increasingly performative while his artwork was often structured and motivated by linguistic play.

Acconci's early writing recalls the work of Samuel Beckett, the deadpan voice of the nouveau roman, and the jump cuts and fraught permutations of the nouvelle vague. Poems in Language to Cover a Page explore the materiality of language ("language as matter and not ideas," as Robert Smithson put it), the physical space of the page, and the physicality of source texts (phonebooks, thesauruses, dictionaries). Other poems take the space of the page as an analogue to performance space or implicate the poem in a network of activity (as in his "Diala-Poem" pieces). Readers will find Acconci's inventive and accomplished poetry as edgy and provocative as anything published today.

Contents:

Delay in Verse x

Section I Idiom 1

[On a table like this, I use the plastic to wrap a package.] 3

[That day, the pen I used was made of plastic, you see.] 4

[The cup. The cup is there.] 5

[There was a man here, but he's disappeared as you look.] 6

[I looked up at it and then it was down when I looked there...] 7

[The dog-that looks like a cat-with the brown face.] 8

[It is day inasmuch as we are here...] 9

[Once there was a man.] 10

[They are united (He was continued by him)] 11

[(he asked)(what happened)(when it went)(on)] 12

Land Cafe 14

[He is walking toward the signpost] 16

[(He moved yesterday)] 17

Contented 19

[In order to make a long story] 20

Ply 21

Title: Name 23

[Thomas, in fact.] 24

[He holds out a weight with arm out-] 25

[To go on, Bert is coming in...] 26

Reprinted From the Following Magazines 27

[able acid angry automatic awake...] 31

[Angles, ants, apples, arches, arms...] 32

[Angles, apples, arches, bags,...] 33

Reference Work: Operations/Operation 34

[hello/hello girl] 35

[small/round/loose] 36

[(a)(fter)(a)(ll)] 37

[READ/y] 38

[When I am reading this] 39

[a knife (a knif-/er] 40

[A tic:/I have a tic.] 41

[A poster (an im-/poster] 42

Re 43

[there there then] 44

[Then it was set down there (and)] 45

Twelve Minutes 46

[Now I am here. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10] 54

[./I have made my point] 55

[I am here/ (again)] 56

[I am here] 57

[See here I have been heard of as I] 58

[I lie down on the land.] 59

[is taken] 60

[I am activating the plaster] 61

[It is at rest.] 62

[is taken] 63

[On the one hand there were two.] 64

[On the one hand there is a finger.] 65

[He looked askance] 66

[His hand was raised and] 67

[On the one hand he lifted his foot.] 68

[I am going from one side to the other.] 69

[he goes from one side to the other] 70

[noun oun] 71

[I went through the day from one side to the other.] 72

[First glance: xxpayer] 73

[Now: I am doing.] 74

[Now I will tell you a secret. I am nodding my head.] 75

[Grip the hammer near the end of the handle...] 76

[Good. This one's okay, too.] 79

[Let me explain. A place is a way for admission or transit...] 80

[I am moving at a normal rate.] 81

... 82

Staples 86

Treed 88

Section II Printed Matter 91

[9 bricks] 93

First Printing 103

Eight and a Half by Eleven Times 105

[She turned the leaf.] 107

[The leaf blows in the wind.] 108

[He sees the paper.] 109

Multiple Choice: True-False 110

[Read This Word Then Read This Word] 111

[Look Ahead] 112

[You Look/ Look Here] 113

[margin/ margin] 114

Cover, Then Title Page (over, hen) 115

[Handle with Care] 117

[A hand is placed on this page] 118

A Sheet 119

[Margins on this paper are set...] 120

[If every second word is chosen...] 121

[The sentence you are reading is the mirror image...] 122

Decisions: January 27, 1969 123

[Announcing an advertisement that will appear in The New York Times] Page/Pages: Reading the First Page of The New York Times, Saturday, June 21, 1969 125

My Performance of Ezra Pound's "Alba" 130

Sequence: "Directions" 131

Sequence: "Note" 146

Section III Four Book and Related Texts 151

Four Book 153

Sample (continue as directed) 198

Sequence: White Pages 206

On (a magazine version of a section of a long prose) 210

Section IV Transference and Related Texts 227

Contacts/Contexts (Frame of Reference): ten pages of reading Roget's Thesaurus 229

Transference 239

Section V Translations 277

Pinpoint (Point ofView): 1 279

Pinpoint (Point ofView): 2 280

Pinpoint (Point ofView): 3 281

[looking at or otherwise scanning...] 282

Marginal Notes: Illustrations for a Text (The Encyclopedia Britannica World Atlas, Geographical Summaries, Copyright 1952) 285

Piece/Re-Piece 291

Installment (Installation): Dictionary/Counting 293

Installment (Installation): Place/Replace 294

Installment (Installation): Move/Remove [1] 295

Installment (Installation): Move/Remove [2] 296

Installment (Installation): Subtraction/Addition 297

Points for Motion (Place Setting): the nouns in the definition of "verb," Webster's Third New International Dictionary, page 2542 298

Points for Transition (Place Setting): the nouns in the definition of "moreover," Webster's Third New International Dictionary, page 1470 299

Fall, Fall Out (From A to Z): Words from Webster's Third New International Dictionary, listed in order as far as they fit on this page 300

Place, Pass (OffThe Ground):The first entry (Afghanistan) of'Nations of the World' The 1969 World Almanac, with the punctuation of the second entry 301

[In the first place, he wrote, from left to right...] 302

[281 Direction] 303

Drift:The Last Page ofWebster's Third New International Dictionary 304

The location of some margin for page one, Roget's Thesaurus, St. Martin's Press, 1965 305

Four Sides (On Edge): margins to an indeterminate space [1-4] 306

Drop (On The Side/ Over The Side): three boundaries of one page, Webster's Third New International Dictionary 310

Transference: Left Boundary (Upper Section), Page 439, Webster's Third New International Dictionary 311

Transference:The Right Boundary of a Road Map, New York, Copyright, R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company, Getty Oil Company 312

Shift 314

Set/Reset: 1:The Left Boundary of Hagstrom's Map of the Bronx 361

Set/Reset: 2:The Left Boundary of Hagstrom's Map of Brooklyn 362

Set/Reset: 3:The Left Boundary of Hagstrom's Map of Manhattan (1) 363

Set/Reset: 3:The Left Boundary of Hagstrom's Map of Manhattan (2) 364

Set/Reset: 4:The Left Boundary of Hagstrom's Map of Queens (1) 365

Set/Reset: 4:The Left Boundary of Hagstrom's Map of Queens (2) 366

Set/Reset: 5:The Left Boundary of Hagstrom's Map of Richmond (Staten Island) 367

Removal, Move (Line of Evidence): the grid locations of streets, alphabetized, Hagstrom's maps of the five boroughs: 3. Manhattan 368

Removal, Move (Line of Evidence): the grid locations of streets, alphabetized, Hagstrom's maps of the five boroughs: 5. Richmond 373

Section VI Discourse Networks 377

[better in all walking in the streets...] 379

Reference Work: Measure, Weather, Location, Time 380

:course, course corrections, docking, contacts, recordings: actions and reactions, build and build-up, reference and transference: two-page spread, double-bill, double cross, double date, double duty, double standard, double tale, double time 381

[-What you hear is a note to a photograph...] 384

[This is a note to a photograph...] 385

[Before the tape you are hearing could have been recorded...] 386

[Saturday,January 18th, 1969...] 387

[This is a note to a telephone weather report...] 388

Act 3, Scene 4 389

[This is a note to the New York City Report...] 398

[This is an example of a voice speaking now on Academy Street...] 399

[-The next voice you hear is something like a voice speaking...] 400

Ten Situations 401

Open House 402

Move/Moves (Double Time):The Time Taken For Me To Walk From 7th Ave. and 17th St. (NE) to 6th Ave. and 17th St. (NW),June 30, 1969, Beginning at 9pm 403

My Performance of"I'm Walking" 404

[-The following is a project for telephone...] 405

[-Listen: If you receive a malicious or annoying phone call...] 406

[-At the tone the time will be...(to be continued)...] 407

Unfinished 408.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 409-411).

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Class of 1897 Book Fund.

ISBN:

0262012243

OCLC:

62282522