Flarf poetry
Flarf poetry was an avant-garde poetry movement of the early 21st century. The term flarf was coined by the poet Gary Sullivan, who also wrote and published the earliest Flarf poems. Its first practitioners, working in loose collaboration on an email mailing list, used an approach that rejected conventional standards of quality and explored subject matter and tonality not typically considered appropriate for poetry. One of their central methods, invented by Drew Gardner, was to mine the Internet with odd search terms then distill the results into humorous or disturbing poems, plays and other texts.
Pioneers of the movement include Jordan Davis, Katie Degentesh, Drew Gardner, Nada Gordon, Mitch Highfill, Rodney Koeneke, Michael Magee, Sharon Mesmer, Mel Nichols, Katie F-S, K. Silem Mohammad, Rod Smith, Gary Sullivan and others.
Overview
Joyelle McSweeney wrote in the Constant Critic:Joshua Clover wrote in The Claudius App:
In 2007, Barrett Watten, a poet and cultural critic, long associated with the so-called Language poets observed that:
Discussion about Flarf has been broadcast by the BBC and NPR and published in magazines such as The Atlantic, Bookforum, The Constant Critic, Jacket, The Nation, Rain Taxi, The Wall Street Journal and The Village Voice. Further discussion has taken place on dozens of blogs and listservs across the United States, and in Australia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Holland, Mexico, and elsewhere.
Poems on-line
- a weblog, active since January 2003, devoted to the poetics of flarf
- includes work from some of this movement's more recognizable practitioners including: Jordan Davis, Katie Degentesh, Benjamin Friedlander, Drew Gardner, Nada Gordon, Rodney Koeneke, Michael Magee, Sharon Mesmer, K. Silem Mohammad, Rod Smith, & Gary Sullivan
- Flarf is Dionysus. Conceptual Writing is Apollo. An introduction to the 21st Century's most controversial poetry movements.
- An Italian example of "Googlism": https://ita.calameo.com/read/000115790b3167bea3911
Audio and textual practice: essays and discussion
- at the Electronic Poetry Center
- an article by Gary Sullivan at The Brooklyn Rail
- an article by Gautam Naik in the Wall Street Journal
- a review of Gary Sullivan's PPL in a Depot in Jacket Magazine
- an article by Dan Hoy at Jacket Magazine
- this essay from the Village Voice is subtitled: "Awful poems sought and found: From spam to Google, flarf redefines random"
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- discussions, interviews, and readings of flarf poetry
- article in Poets and Writers
- The Constant Critic's Joyelle McSweeney reviews Drew Gardner's "Petroleum Hat"
- Article on Flarf in The Atlantic
- Flarf primer on Bookforum featuring reviews of "The Anger Scale" by Katie Degentesh, "Petroleum Hat" by Drew Gardner, "Folly" by Nada Gordon, "Musee Mechanique" by Rodney Koeneke, "My Angie Dickinson" by Michael Magee, "Annoying Diabetic Bitch" by Sharon Mesmer. "Deer Head Nation" by K. Silem Mohammad, & "PPL in a Depot" by Gary Sullivan
- by Jack Chelgren
Music and performance
- Music and poetry conducted by Drew Gardner.
- The Flarf Orchestra performing live at Le Poisson Rouge in New York City. Features Katie Degentesh, Nada Gordon and Sharon Mesmer.
- Poet and lawyer Vanessa Place's talk recorded on March 11, 2010 at AWP 2010: Denver, "Flarf & Conceptual Poetry Panel"
- * K. Silem Mohammad has called this piece "Drew Gardner's answer to Vanessa Place"
- American poet-critic Alan Gilbert weighs in on the controversy