Thursday, November 27, 2008

Flarf's Kopóltuš (1)

Poetic composition, literally 'to find'.

Ezra Pound (SP, 95 fn2)

What I have always liked about Flarf is the arrangement of (obviously) non-poetic material for (undeniably) poetic effect. Katie Degentesh's "No One Cares Much What Happens to You" is a perfectly good example. So is Sharon Mesmer's "I Am Beautiful". The question I want to ask about these poems is whether they achieve their effect before the last line or whether they have become "poetic" long before that. At what point does the picture take over the seeing?

Or we might put it this way: at what point does the finding give way to a composing? At what point does what we have found become a composition?

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