No Art

Ben Lerner is one of the smartest and most innovative American poets of our time. No Art showcases the wide range of lyrical formats that Lerner masters and continuously develops: the shattered sonnet, the poetic meditation, the gesturally shifted elegy, the recombination and variation of speeches and linguistic gestures beyond the individual text. Recurring thematic areas, textualization processes, and linguistic reference systems become visible, foremost a dual engagement: with the cultural and political present of the United States and the question of how to access it through thought and speech. Alexander Kluge attests to the completely autonomous cadence and rhythm of Lerner's poems and writes in his foreword: "In this flow of words, there are suddenly highly concentrated sparks of information, wit, and content precision. Here, ideals of Critical Theory meet a solid New York modernity.".