Black produces pastiche sonnets. If Swensen takes her inspiration from a traditional form like opera, Kenneth Goldsmith, a visual artist again with Cagean leanings, uses specific generative devices, often chosen by means of chance operations. Soliloquy is a project in which Goldsmith tape recorded every word he spoke for a week from the moment he woke up Monday morning to the moment he went to sleep Sunday night. For the transcription, he edited every other voice out but his own and his own was completed unedited. No prettying things up here.
Every word is, so to speak, x-rayed, mined for the possibilities of punning and allusion.
Dworkin has studied Dada and Situationist poetics carefully. Primarily a visual poet, here he uses words as visual counters. It is an exciting moment for lyric poetry.