Flarf Is In POETRY (And So Am I)
Flarf is in Poetry, and I’m in flarf, so I’m in Poetry too. Oh, Harriet Monroe. Oh, Ruth Lilly, whose family’s liquid vitamin B — Homicibrin, or some such name — I took as a child for underweightedness. I can still taste it.
In this, the July/August issue, with a summery watermelon smiley on the cover, flarf falls under the same watermelon smiley as Philip Levine, Tony Hoagland and Jane Hirschfield, whose poem (“Perishable, It Said”) ends with the line . . .
inside that hour with its perishing perfumes and clashings.
For comparison, here’s Philip Levine’s poem, “An Extraordinary Morning” . . .
Two young men — you might call them boys —
waiting for the Woodward streetcar to get
them downtown. Yes, they’re tired, they’re also
dirty, and happy. Happy because they’ve
finished a short work week and if they’re not rich
they’re as close to rich as they’ll ever be
in this town. Are they truly brothers?
. . . and here's fellow flarfista Nada Gordon’s “Unicorn Believers Don’t Declare Fatwas”:
I was sort of doodling Hitler at my friend’s
house and we couldn’t stop watching
unicorn hardcore soft porn abortion e-cards
containing scenes in which the baby angora unicorn
and Hitler stay warm on a cold night.
Here’s a taste of Tony Hoagland’s poem, “At the Galleria Shopping Mall” . . .
And here is my niece Lucinda,
who is nine and a true daughter of Texas,
who has developed the flounce of a pedigreed blonde
and declares that her favorite sport is shopping.
. . . contrasted with Drew Gardner’s interstitial “Why do I hate Flarf so much?”:
She came from the mountains, killing zombies at will. Some people cried, “But that was cool!” and I could only whisper “we should NOT be killing zombies!” . . . Hate and love — if those are the options I just want to hate and love lobsters.
Finally, here's the watermelon smiley cover . . .
. . . and here is flarfisto K. Silem Mohammad's cover:
In this, the July/August issue, with a summery watermelon smiley on the cover, flarf falls under the same watermelon smiley as Philip Levine, Tony Hoagland and Jane Hirschfield, whose poem (“Perishable, It Said”) ends with the line . . .
inside that hour with its perishing perfumes and clashings.
For comparison, here’s Philip Levine’s poem, “An Extraordinary Morning” . . .
Two young men — you might call them boys —
waiting for the Woodward streetcar to get
them downtown. Yes, they’re tired, they’re also
dirty, and happy. Happy because they’ve
finished a short work week and if they’re not rich
they’re as close to rich as they’ll ever be
in this town. Are they truly brothers?
. . . and here's fellow flarfista Nada Gordon’s “Unicorn Believers Don’t Declare Fatwas”:
I was sort of doodling Hitler at my friend’s
house and we couldn’t stop watching
unicorn hardcore soft porn abortion e-cards
containing scenes in which the baby angora unicorn
and Hitler stay warm on a cold night.
Here’s a taste of Tony Hoagland’s poem, “At the Galleria Shopping Mall” . . .
And here is my niece Lucinda,
who is nine and a true daughter of Texas,
who has developed the flounce of a pedigreed blonde
and declares that her favorite sport is shopping.
. . . contrasted with Drew Gardner’s interstitial “Why do I hate Flarf so much?”:
She came from the mountains, killing zombies at will. Some people cried, “But that was cool!” and I could only whisper “we should NOT be killing zombies!” . . . Hate and love — if those are the options I just want to hate and love lobsters.
Finally, here's the watermelon smiley cover . . .
. . . and here is flarfisto K. Silem Mohammad's cover:
posted by Sharon Mesmer at 8:03 AM
5 Comments:
Thanks for the flarfalfa sprouts; I'll sprinkle them on my salad. Their surreal, parodic, James Tate-like nuttiness exhilarates me. The snippets of "real poetry," by contrast, sound like the sort of thing I'd read only to cure my insomnia--especially the Hoagland.
can anyone write flarf or is there an initiation process? or a joining fee?
i liked flarf best when breton and co. did it. it was just as annoying and full of itself then, but at least it was a bit less assholeish.
The only issues of Poetry worth reading, it looks like, are the guest-edited ones.
David and Glenn: Thanks!!!
Ry: There is a rigorous and shameful hazing ritual if you want to be in flarf. I can't even begin to describe it ... shudder ...
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