That’s not writing
That’s not writing, that’s typewriting.
Truman Capote on Jack Kerouac
That’s not writing, that’s plumbing.
Samuel Beckett on William S. Burroughs
That’s not writing, that’s typing.
That’s not writing, that’s someone else typing.
That’s not writing, that’s googling.
That’s not writing, that’s pasting.
That’s not writing, that’s blogging.
That’s not writing, that’s wasted, unproductive, tweaking time.
That’s not writing, that’s stupid.
That’s not writing, that’s a coloring book.
That’s not writing, that’s coming up with ideas.
That’s not writing, that’s waiting.
That’s not writing, that’s mad scribble.
That’s not writing, that’s printing and lettering.
That’s not writing, that’s tape-recording
That’s not writing, that’s word-processing.
That’s not writing, that’s following the herd.
That’s not writing, that’s copying and pasting.
That’s not writing, that’s directing.
That’s not writing, that’s using high polluting words to confuse readers.
That’s not writing, that’s aggregating, and there are already plenty of aggregators out there.
That’s not writing, that’s printing.
That’s not writing, that’s art.
That’s not writing, that’s Tourette’s.
That’s not writing, that’s posing.
That’s not writing, that’s button-mashing, and anyone can do that.
That’s not writing, that’s vandalism.
That’s not writing, that’s acting.
That’s not writing, that’s blabbing.
That’s not writing, that’s hiking.
That’s not writing, that’s just a knife he’s using to eat pie with.
That’s not writing, that’s bullying.
That’s not writing, that’s dentistry.
That’s not writing, that’s just endless blathering.
That’s not writing, that’s yelling.
That’s not writing, that’s butchery!
That’s not writing, that’s a fortune cookie!
That’s not writing, that’s emoting.
That’s not writing, that’s just dressing it up after.
That’s not writing, that’s just playing around.
That’s not writing, that’s daydreaming.
That’s not writing, that’s showing off.
That’s not writing, that’s keyboarding.
That’s not writing, that’s calligraphy.
That’s not writing, that’s mindless pasting.
That’s not writing, that’s an action flick.
That’s not writing, that’s a puddle.
That’s not writing, that’s a tragedy.
That’s not writing, that’s assembly line mass production.
That’s not writing, that’s transcribing.
That’s not writing, that’s computer-generated text.
That’s not typing, that’s data entry.
DOI: 10.17436/etk.c.031
In Beaulieu, Derek: The unbearable contact with poets. S. 11f.
Published by if p then q, Manchester
Text and cover image © Derek Beaulieu 2015
ISBN 978-0-9571827-8-3
“Derek Alexander Beaulieu (born 1973) is a Canadian poet, publisher and anthologist. Beaulieu studied contemporary Canadian poetics at the University of Calgary. His work has appeared internationally in small press publications, magazines, and in visual art galleries. He has lectured on small press politics, arts funding and literary community in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Iceland. He is the 2014-2016 Poet Laureate of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He works extensively around issues of community and poetics, and along those lines has edited (or co-edited) the magazines filling Station (19982001, 20042008), dANDelion (20012004), and endNote (20002001). He founded housepress in 1997 from which he published small editions of poetry, prose and critical work until 2004. The housepress fonds are now located at Simon Fraser University. In 2005 he founded the small press no press. In 2005 he co-edited Shift & Switch: new Canadian poetry with Angela Rawlings and Jason Christie, a controversial anthology of new poetry which has been reviewed internationally. Beaulieu has shifted his focus in recent years to conceptual fiction, specifically visual translations/rewritings. His book Flatland consists of visual patterns based on the typography of Edwin Abbott Abbott’s classic novel Flatland and his book Local Colour is a series of colour blocks based on the original text of Paul Auster’s novella Ghosts. How to Write, a collection of conceptual prose, was published by Talonbooks in 2010. Beaulieu lives in Calgary, Alberta.” Mehr: Wikipedia …