Conceptual Writing and Catastrophe

Abstract

Faced with tragic historic events, many poets have opted for formal strategies that allow to move the reader the most direct way possible, using the voice of the witness or even the victims themselves. Other authors, however, perhaps with similar intentions, have chosen detachment and suppression of emotion as their techniques. Within the contemporary trend of conceptualism or conceptual writing, there are several poets, such as Rob Fitterman y Carlos Soto Román, whose main tool is the appropriation and manipulation of records and digital archives. This kind of works provides a provocative way of thinking the relationship between poetry and politics.