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Kenneth Goldsmith

Seven American Deaths and Disasters Paperback – March 12, 2013

by Kenneth Goldsmith (Author)

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3.8 on Goodreads

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What are the words we use to describe something that we never thought we'd have to describe? In Seven American Deaths and Disasters, Kenneth Goldsmith transcribes historic radio and television reports of national tragedies as they unfurl, revealing an extraordinarily rich linguistic panorama of passionate description. Taking its title from the series of Andy Warhol paintings by the same name, Goldsmith recasts the mundane as the iconic, creating a series of prose poems that encapsulate seven pivotal moments in recent American history: the John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and John Lennon assassinations, the space shuttle Challenger disaster, the Columbine shootings, 9/11, and the death of Michael Jackson. While we've become accustomed to watching endless reruns of these tragic spectacles-often to the point of cliche-once rendered in text, they become unfamiliar, and revealing new dimensions emerge. Impartial reportage is revealed to be laced with subjectivity, bias, mystery, second-guessing, and, in many cases, white-knuckled fear. Part nostalgia, part myth, these words render pivotal moments in American history through the communal lens of media.

Print length

176 pages
Language

English
Publisher

powerHouse Books
Publication date

March 12, 2013
Dimensions

4.29 x 1.05 x 7 inches
ISBN-10

9781576876367
ISBN-13

978-1576876367
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"...it’s like nothing he’s done. It knocks the air from your lungs."
-The New York Times

"This book feels both like an important historical document and a beautiful example of what the Great American Novel might look like today."
-The Paris Review

"It mingles the language of radio and TV commercials with sometimes bumbling, sometimes heroic reports from journalists filing their first draft of history. 'Seven American Deaths and Disasters' is of a piece with Mr. Goldsmith's provocative literary aesthetic."
-The Wall Street Journal

"The high priest of what he calls Non-Creative Writing, Goldsmith continues
producing books from found texts—in the case of Seven American Deaths and
Disasters, he transcribes radio transmissions announcing famous deaths and other
bad news. His new book is a textual equivalent of Warhol’s Death and Disaster
paintings, ripped from the front pages of the Daily News."
-Publishers Weekly

"Goldsmith's material, unmistakably real, refuses to remain in a literary frame."
-Bookslut

"Kenneth Goldsmith is always ahead of the curve! Just when readers were becoming used to his “boring” transcriptions of weather or traffic reports, he here reverses the game by turning his attention to the extraordinary: seven cases of assassination, murder, sudden death, or terrorism and how such unforeseen events have been handled by the feckless and unaware media. Seven Deaths is a real page-turner: you will feel you’re there, living through the horrific events as they unfold."
-Marjorie Perloff, author of "Unoriginal Genius: Poetry by Other Means in the New" Century

About the Author

Kenneth Goldsmith's writing has been called "some of the most exhaustive and beautiful collage work yet produced in poetry" by Publishers Weekly. Goldsmith is the author of ten books of poetry, founding editor of the online archive UbuWeb (ubu.com), and the editor of I'll Be Your Mirror: The Selected Andy Warhol Interviews, which was the basis for an opera, Trans-Warhol, that premiered in Geneva in March of 2007. An hour-long documentary on his work, Sucking on Words was first shown at the British Library in 2007. He teaches writing at The University of Pennsylvania, where he is a senior editor of PennSound, an online poetry archive. He held The Anschutz Distinguished Fellow Professorship in American Studies at Princeton University for 2009-10 and received the Qwartz Electronic Music Award in Paris in 2009. In May 2011, he was invited to read at President Obama's A Celebration of American Poetry at the White House, where he also held a poetry workshop with First Lady Michelle Obama. In 2011, he co-edited, Against Expression: An Anthology of Conceptual Writing and published a book of essays, Uncreative Writing: Managing Language in the Digital Age. Goldsmith was invited to participate in dOCUMENTA(13) in Kassel, Germany, 2012. In 2012, dOCUMENTA(13) published his Letter to Bettina Funcke as part of their "100 Notes—100 Thoughts" book series.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 1576876365
Publisher ‏ : ‎ powerHouse Books; 2.12.2013 edition (March 12, 2013)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 176 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781576876367
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1576876367
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 5.5 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4.29 x 1.05 x 7 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,989,951 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,682 in American Fiction Anthologies
- #7,977 in American Poetry (Books)
- #15,722 in Short Stories Anthologies

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31 ratings

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5 star		41%
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1 star		9%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Grumpy the Grump

A fascinating, moving read

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 6, 2013

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I wasn't really sure what I expected from this book. I admit, I am the type of person who enjoys the raw emotion inherent in something like this, but the degree to which this read like poetry surprised me. There is something much more meaningful in the mundane - and despite the author's objections, I do think there's something very mundane about all of these transcriptions - than we ever give it credit for, and I appreciate that this book gave me the opportunity to see that.

It's not perfect by any means. I think some of the event choices were odd, and I wish more time had been spent on something like Columbine rather than Michael Jackson. But then again, the beauty of it is that the author is writing about what moved and effected him - I can always go do my own transcription for things that I find more meaningful.

I highly recommend this book!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 19, 2013

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I really enjoyed this, despite the morbid subject matter. The cultural differences and differences in the way major events were very apparent in JFK. Columbian hit pretty hard, not just because I lived through it, but because of how short and personal it was, not to mention what was left unsaid at the end. 9/11 brought back a lot of memories for me and struck a nerve with the speculation and reactionary hate that has become so common in the U.S. since. Great read.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 25, 2013

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In an era of abundant information, a chapbook of transcribed disaster reports could easily pass by--like seven clicks on Google News.

But Goldsmith's "uncreative writing" is among the most exciting avenues of poetry today, and Seven American Deaths and Disasters is his most beautiful and--really!--readable books yet.

It might be reading too much to take the book as a critique of both solipsism and apathy, but in the context of poetry the scripts of these unscripted moments pack a wallop.

Also, the book is completely beautiful. I expected the same lackluster design that befalls most poetry books, but the production has remarkable details I don't want to spoil.

6 people found this helpful

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Lackluster

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 7, 2014

Verified Purchase

I really thought the choices of the first three stories were smart. The selected transcriptions were informing and interesting. However from Lennon on, aside from Columbine, the choices were a bit trite and not diverse enough to represent our nation. It was interesting to watch the change in the tone of radio djs. But after the first part of the book I was just disappointed by the choices the author made in what he included and disclosed.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 24, 2013

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I saw the author interviewed by Colbert and ordered immediately. It's fascinating to see historical tragedies unfold in these narratives. The first one is JFK assassination as reported by a Dallas radio station. The usual song, ad, song radio show. Then a news brief - 3 shots fired at presidents motorcade - then back to song, ad, song. Then more news that expands and grows. I was too young to experience this when it happened, but tears welled up many times because you know the ending but see the reporters holding out hope. Another chapter is the 911 call from a teacher in Columbine library. Wow.

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Amazon Customer

Only Suitable as Kindling

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 23, 2016

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Kenneth Goldsmith is easily the most obnoxious "poet" of the twenty-first century. His blatant disregard for the true practice of literature and his insistence that there is nothing original left to be written mean that, by all rights, he should not consider himself a literary figure at all, and should retire. Yet here he is, making a laughable attempt to contribute something to the canon which he himself believes is complete and falling woefully short of the quality of work required. The transcripts within this book do not properly capture the emotion of the events portrayed, and leave out many of the essential details required to completely understand those events. This book is a blight upon literary history and Kenneth Goldsmith should be ashamed of his pitiful attempt to grasp notoriety.

One person found this helpful

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Joe C. Andrick

Simple Concept - Great Book

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 26, 2013

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So far I have only read the first chapter [or what ever this author calls them] about the JFK assassination. It follows the event using a transcript of a Dallas radio's broadcast starting before the assassination and ending with the announcement of the death of the president. If the rest of the book is as interesting I will be even happier about this purchase than I am now.

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Eros Faust

The Novelty Wears Off

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 9, 2013

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Reproducing the newscasts as they occurred is a clever gimmick, but the novelty of it wears off before the book is done. Not bad, but not great either. You might give it a shot if the gimmick intrigues you.

3 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Ian C

Creativity as it happens

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 24, 2013

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To describe a disaster as it explodes into mundane everyday life, with a mass audience listening, finding words for what has not been described before - this is language at its most pressured and most creative. Yet this everyday creativity gets lost as it disappears into the moment, and gets overlooked both by historians for whom it is but raw material, and by poets and writers who want to create their own words, to express their own perceptions. In this brilliant book Kenneth Goldsmith, notorious for not writing his own books of poetry, recovers the live accounts of seven tragic moments in recent American history, from the assassination of JFK to the death of Michael Jackson. Doing no more than selecting the moments and transcribing the words he has created a document of immense emotive power, and traces an arc from what now seems like the innocent world into which the JFK shooting erupted to the culture of celebrity and self-conscious of the Jackson death. This is essential reading for anyone interested in the creative power of language and our ability to respond to the unexpected and shocking. These were American moments but their cultural impact resonated throughout they Western world. Yes, anyone could have done this - but only Goldsmith did.

One person found this helpful

Amazon Customer

Four Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 4, 2016

Verified Purchase

Fascinating concept. Interesting to read.

General Mills

good book

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on August 26, 2013

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this book arrived earlier than the arrival date, was in good shape and met all my expectations, even a great price!

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