Archive - Useless Concentration

What is Mainstream Poetry? Part 2: To be struck by the world

4 hrs ago •

June 2025

What is mainstream poetry? pt. 1

1. The thing I hate about the Burgundian poets is, of course, their poetry, but second, after their poems, I hate the Burgundian poets themselves, for…

Jun 17 •

March 2025

On Anna Kornbluh's Immediacy, Marxist literary criticism, and the desire for fiction to reflect reality

Mar 5 •

September 2024

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Autumnal non-substack roundup of my work

Sep 28, 2024 •

August 2024

On Rachel Cusk and reality

Aug 18, 2024 •

July 2024

The Boing in Ongoingness

On Oli Hazzard's Sleepers Awake, the progress of poetry and the march of time

Jul 28, 2024 •

June 2024

Surplus Culture

on literary festivals, living wrong life, and the aesthetics of biting the hand that feeds you.

Jun 28, 2024 •

March 2024

Why should I want to read a system? Part I

On Dan Sinykin’s Big Fiction, literary sociology, totality, the systems novel, ‘real subsumption’, and the (good, actually) fiction of self-legislating…

Mar 2, 2024 •

December 2023

“The desire to become one’s destroyer”

On Mohamed Mbougar Sarr’s The Most Secret Memory of Men, and the not-so great tradition of literary failure.

Dec 10, 2023 •

October 2023

Necessary Friendship

on Joseph Minden's Backlogues

Oct 12, 2023 •

June 2023

Chat GPT in the 19th Century

Or, How George Gissing predicted the AI revolution

Jun 12, 2023 •

April 2023

"Motherfucking Spanish Language"

On Alejandro Zambra’s Chilean Poet, Chilean poets, and the Bolaño business

Apr 3, 2023 •

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