Thank you Tyler, and thank you Cybele.
Thank all of you for coming out tonight.
You're probably here tonight to hear
Tan Lin read in his voice--
[LAUGHTER]
--his writing.
This is an inherently paradoxical situation,
as Tan disavows concepts of originality, authenticity,
and voice.
Tan's work is always challenging the notion
of what it means to read.
What do we do when we encounter poems, or tabloid magazines,
or 30 page legal contracts, product reviews on websites,
academic criticism, cookbooks, plagiarized student papers,
19th century verse novels, artworks like Duchamp's
or Warhol, architectural blueprints, computer passwords,
bad translations, criminal labeling, amateur photographer,
high end coffee table books?
[LAUGHTER]
[CLEARS THROAT]
We do more than just read.
We cruise, surf, skim, scan, cut, crack, bone, blip, buy,
imbibe.
Tan Lin knows that our reading is
often dependent on capitalistic systems of packaging,
distribution, and formatting.
[LAUGHTER]
Tan knows that how we read is changing, no longer
a solitary romantic enterprise, if it ever was.
But more look into web surfing with multiple browser tabs
open, or listening to a DJ at a club.
We mix songs that are themselves already remixed.
Or shopping for vintage items in a retrofitted mall, originally
built in the 1980s.
Everything has become a citation of itself.
[LAUGHTER]
Tan doesn't want to read his work,
or have you read it in the ways you
might think poetry should be read.
Don't be surprised if Tan invites
you to read his writing with one eye
shut, or the music turned up so loud
you can barely concentrate on the words.
Or in such a way that the experience of reading
is not the all-absorbing primary activity
we think proper reading should be.
But it becomes a secondary and background activity
to some other--
[LAUGHTER]
--primary activity.
Integral to Tan's deep curiosity about reading and our notions
of reading are his challenges to traditional notions of valuable
text , as opposed to disposable or mundane ones.
Tan Lin doesn't believe in literature with a capital L.
[LAUGHTER]
And his writerly response to this concept is to quote,
and I quote, Oh, I quote.
[LAUGHTER]
"Diffuse poetry, or what is generally
referred to as serious literature,
into other less overly literary arenas,
like cookbooks, office productivity software,
such as PowerPoint, or films.
Most people don't write poems or novels,
but they do compose reports, memos, restaurant reviews
on Yelp, and grocery lists.
Literature usually tries to assert its difference
from such kinds of writing, but I wanted literature--"
This is Tan Lin, remember--
"--to approach them.
And by them, I mean their specific genre conventions.
Can literature resemble a cookbook, or a PowerPoint
lecture?
I think so."
End quote.
Here's a tip to reading Tan.
When you read him, relax.
Don't worry too much about being befuddled or bemused.
Approach the work less as traditional poems
and think about the ways you read other everyday objects
and artifacts.
Know that poetry is more than just poems.
Tan is the author of over 10 books, but who's counting?
His video theatrical and LCD work
has been shown at Otis Space, the Marianne Boesky
Gallery, the Yale Art Museum, Sophienholm
Museum in Copenhagen, Ontological Hysterical Theater,
and as part of the Whitney Museum of American Art
Sound Check Series.
He is a recipient of a Foundation for Contemporary
Arts Grant for poetry, a Getty distinguished scholar grant,
and a Warhol Foundation Creative Capital Arts writing grant
to complete a book-length study of the writing of Andy Warhol.
He teaches creative writing at New Jersey City University.
Please help me welcome Tan Lin.
[APPLAUSE]