“Writing is fifty years behind painting” – Brion Gysin, 1959

K E N N E T H   G O L D S M I T H 

sucking on words

Simon Morris [artist]:  “I’m suspecting you are not going to buy into Kenny’s line that he always likes to quote from Brion Gysin of “literature is fifty years behind painting” –  would you buy into that or not?” 

Bruce Andrews [L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poet]:  “Oh, I generally would.  I mean, certainly, if you are talking about poetry.  Other genres of literature would be even more ridiculous and moribund, the idea of narrative or fiction, the idea of creating verisimilitude based on characters and plot situations - completely hokey Victorian notion.  The creative writing people are generally, you know, total, total hacks.  You know, they are living in another, that are living in some previous century, or living in some previous planet.  They’re still involved with this therapeutic, crappy ideology about letting students express their inner selves and these little epiphanies of lyric blubble, you know, I mean, it’s a joke, it’s a terrible joke.”

(via bright stupid confetti)