How to Write

The modernist Ezra Pound asserted that poets should “make it new,” and of course by “it” he meant “the literary tradition.” The assertion was by no means original, much less post-modern: John Donne, for example, argued centuries earlier that “all mankind is of one author, and is one volume.” Taking inspiration from Lautréamont’s decree that “plagiarism is necessary,” How to Write gleefully illustrates Picasso’s dictum that “Good artists copy. Great artists steal.” Containing ten pieces of conceptual prose ranging from the purely appropriated through the entirely recomposed, covering a range of texts from the anonymous to the famous, it includes samplings from, among many others: Lawrence Sterne; Agatha Christie; Bob Kane; Roy Lichtenstein; and every piece of text within one block of the author’s home.

“In derek beaulieu’s fractal economies, language regards itself, stalks itself, begins, slowly, to eat itself.” —Canadian Literature

“Never read a book of concrete poetry before? This might be the one to hook you.” —FFWD Weekly