How to diet with Mira Gonzalez

As part of our new summer US project States of Independence we've invited our favourite 30 American curators, magazines, creatives and institutions to takeover Dazed for a day. 

Kenneth Goldsmith is taking over. The Museum of Modern Art's first Poet Laureate and founder of Ubuweb is on a mission to tell us why we should care about poetry at all – from his stirring call to arms (or QWERTY keyboards), to exclusive poetry designed to challenge your poetic preconceptions: Microsoft Word poems, found poems and Mira Gonzalez's diet poems. 

"Nobody likes poetry" says Kenneth Goldsmith in his candid introduction to today's guest edit; Mira Gonzalez, perhaps, is proof that a radically non-generic, non-versified, non-standardised version of "poetry" is infiltrating the public consciousness of everybody (everywhere), nonetheless. Living, tweeting proof that the social media account is mightier than the sword is mightier than the pen, Gonzalez has had a busy time of it: she's been nominated for the Believer Poetry Award, and her debut poetry collection, i will never be beautiful enough to make us beautiful together, sold out its first print run altogether. With a poetic style that captures a generation – not "young people today" so much as those true milennials that have never known a world without the internet – Gonzalez's work encompasses the paradoxes of daily life with unique honesty and wit. Minimalist to the point of brutality, poems and tweets both stare back at the reader with an unflinching gaze – like a screen-grabbed webcam shot, Gonzalez never looks away first. Go on – get a taste for the new poetic sincerity with her "Diet Tips", below.

DIET TIPS 

If you don’t use a plate it doesn’t have calories 

If you eat it after midnight it doesn’t have calories 

If you feel guilty about eating it, the guilt cancels out the calories 

If a loved one makes you feel insecure about eating it, not only does it not have calories, it actually has negative calories and cancels out other calories

If nobody sees you eat it then you never actually ate it, hence, no calories 

If you cut one meal into a lot of pieces it becomes a lot of meals 

Looking at photos of food makes you fatter 

Protein is a myth 

Alcohol doesn’t have calories 

Exercise has no health benefits but you should do it anyways to punish yourself

If you eat it with a fork, its a salad 

If you eat it with your hands it has twice as many calories as you thought it did 

If you’re hungry, just remember all the vague and seemingly unsolvable problems you have that hunger is distracting you from thinking about 

Ice cream is vegan 

The shame you feel after eating ice cream is also vegan 

Train yourself to view eating as ‘face fucking yourself with food’ 

The self control it takes to not eat food that is in front of you burns more calories than running a mile 

The better food tastes, the worse you should feel while eating it 

If you don’t feel unbearably guilty every time you eat anything then you’re in denial 

Any time you go into American Apparel you automatically gain 10 pounds. If you buy something you gain 20 pounds 

The calories from the all finger nails and cuticle skin that you ingest on a daily basis is enough, you don’t need food

If someone says you look ‘healthy’ you should develop a cocaine habit immediately 

Anyone who exercises on a regular basis is calling you fat just by existing 

All body mass index charts are wrong 

All scales add 10 pounds unless someone who isn’t you is weighing themselves, then the scale deducts 10 pounds 

Any food sold to you by a child (i.e Girl Scout cookies) has no calories 

Contrary to popular belief, water does have calories