Kenneth Goldsmith has launched a bold, full-throttle investigation into the nature of unpublishability over at Ubu. Introducing Publishing the Unpublishable, Goldsmith asks, “What constitutes an unpublishable work?” Authors sent in works that otherwise would have remained untouched, festering at the bottom of some slush pile. Goldsmith will press onwards until the 100th manuscript is published, and I’ve been keeping my eye on the roll out. There is a 1018-page manuscript (too long!), there are some high school love poems (oh, too juvenile!), and there are several really impressive pieces (the image to the right is from Jeremy Sigler’s Math, a click-through explosion of primary colors). What I really like about Publishing the Unpublishable is that it’s more than an analysis of the wheat&chaff phenomenon:

“The web is a perfect place to test the limits of unpublishability. With no printing, design or distribution costs, we are free to explore that which would never have been feasible, economically and aesthetically. While this exercise began as an exploration and provocation, the resultant texts are unusually rich; what we once considered to be our trash may, after all, turn out to be our greatest treasure.”

Item 40, Issue 1, the 3,785-page PDF edited by Stephen McLauglin, Vladimir Zykov and Gregory Laynor, James Carpenter, stirred some strong sentiments back in early November, but I was glad to see it added to Goldsmith’s Publishing the Unpublishable. Definitely testing the limits of unpublishability, the massive PDF contained charming computer-generated poetry, boasted a lengthy list of “poets,” and made several individuals unexpected authors, including one member of if:book. Other interesting unpublishables include Craig Dworkin’s Maps, Mairead Byne’s Example as Figure, and Elizabeth S. Clark’s Between Words. I look forward to seeing what manuscript gets pulled out next.