review of "HELVETICA" by Steve Roggenbuck

You are in creative writing MFA program, I think, or you have taken workshops.  I remember reading that you were MFA though.  What do people in your program say about these things (assuming that you submit them for the workshops)?  I feel like writing workshops are opposed to such radical ( i mean this in its defintion's sense) approaches to writing due to the kind of main/stream/lined approach of workshops.  What do you think?

i haven't brought any of the helvetica poems to my workshops because i haven't felt really confident if they are actually "poems" or what other people would say about them. i have started bringing some other really short, flarfy writing though, and i get mixed reactions. the main comment i get is that most of my writing in those forms is "only funny." a number of people in my program believe that poetry can be funny but it should also be something deeper, like it should teach you something too... it's really weird getting those comments, and i feel like they've kind of distanced me from "poetry" and calling my work "poetry."

I posed that question to Steve.  He responded how I thought he would.  I have had similar experiences in workshops in the past.

That was a question I posed to Steve Roggenbuck over email, in response to his new book entitled "DOWNLOADHELVETICAFORFREE.COM"

There was an article written about Steve Roggenbuck, as well as Poncho Pelligroso and Jordan Castro, that described their writing as "neo-Dada."  Roggenbuck accepted this term, Pelligroso debated it, and I don't think Castro entered the discussion himself.

I think that to call this Dada is to point out why it would be called Dada and why the term is useless.

I dont know if that made sense.

Is this poetry?  It doesn't really matter.  It tests the readers' ability to just enjoy and not have to classify anything.

Dada.

Ducahmp.

The Fountain.

I don't know.

This one is good: http://www.downloadhelveticaforfree.com/helvetica-41/

A lot of these are funny, but that doesn't mean they lack value.  I think the above link demonstrates it.

Roggenbuck found these words for all these pieces from his MSN messenger chats back in high schoo.

The above link demonstrates multiple levels of meaning.  First, someone actually said that at some point.  But we don't relate to that immediately as readers.  We find it to be funny.  Then when we try to wonder about the context of it it becomes less straightforward humor, because someone had an actual life. They were checking their grade.

It also is interesting because this entire work challenges notions of what becomes literature in this digital age.  We are living in the twenty-first century. 

I feel most of the people who read this blog will agree with whatever I am going to say so I am going to just end by saying that I found this interesting and funny.  Intellectually stimulating even.  Because it takes me back to a place that no longer is here, and it also makes me wonder how I got from there to here and where here is and how here will soon be there and I will be in another here.

These don't have to be poems.  They don't have to be Dada.  They can just be.  I guess those terms are just useful to use in order to frame a discussion maybe.

I enjoyed this book.  I am going to buy it a print copy from the website when I have enough cash flow.
It is very much worth a read.