Flarf Reading #2

Mesmer, Sharon. 2007. "I Am Beautiful". Annoying Diabetic Bitch. Combo Books. Page 55.

Flarf does not mock the language of its sources, it simply uses it. Often, of course, it uses it for purposes beyond those originally intended. Sometimes more purposefully but often actually less purposefully, at least at the level of the individual line. We will, however, get nowhere in our understanding of Flarf if we imagine that there is some interestingly Bloomian "clinamen" or "swerve", or some sort of irony, sarcasm, or satire, in the relation between the intentions of Flarf and the intentions of its sources. They are as related as the purpose of a tree in a forest is related to the purpose of the hardwood floor in your living room.

"I Am Beautiful" is a great example. While the language has been gathered from personal web pages, obscure songs (like Dax Riggs's "In Death I'm Only Hiding"), and popular culture (like the 2004 movie Sideways), the most interesting reading is one in which we take seriously the recurrence of the "I" as a single speaking subject, and let it bring all the emotions together into the one intense and singular, but of course always fragile, sentiment of the title.

There are moments of real referentiality. We all know what "Al Gore" and "no fucking Merlot" stand for. In fact, it is with the connection of the speaker's sense of her own "famous and gorgeous" body (and soul) to the connoiseur's famous vitriol and the environmentalist's famous spam ("I am also really sick of getting emails from Al Gore./Fuck you, Al Gore, you fucking loser") that a rapport with the reader also becomes possible. There is nothing ironic, mocking, satirical, or sarcastic about the tenderness we next come to feel for this "ballerina with a clown face encased in a big beautiful teardrop". We are now willing not to hate her just because she is beautiful. We are, perhaps, even again becoming capable of loving her outright—for, not despite, her beautiful body, her beautiful soul. And "Daniel"? Well, yes, of course. We "fucking hate that song" too.

Last thought: though I love Sharon Mesmer's delivery in readings as-is, I have found the image of Elizabeth Alexander's "poet's voice" reading the poem (and other poems, like "Squid versus Assclown" and "I Accidently Ate Some Chicken") through a PA system aimed at the Washington monument useful when approaching her work.

Flarf Reading #1

Mohammad, K. Silem. "Does Your Poetry Hold Up?" in Hanging Out with Pablo and Jennifer. Duration Press. (PDF)

If all the judgments that are gathered in this poem were laughable, the poem would be merely satirical. It would mock the pretensions of the editor, or the genuflections of the aspiring poet. But it does not do this. Instead, it shows us what "your poetry" means by showing us how the phrase can be used. You are now free to use "your poetry" as you choose, as your needs require.

This poem says "have done with judgment" but it does not imagine that judgments will go away. It says you will have to proceed and the judging will continue too. It offers no position of ironic superiority: some of the judgments will be right.

Flarf's Biggest Fan

Maybe I think everyone should take a month off and just let John Latta and Thomas Basboll blog for awhile, and then jump back in and try to meet them at the pitch they're playing in.

Tony Tost

I missed the recent flurry of activity about Flarf centred around Dale Smith's Possum Ego. Some key contributions seem to include Kent's remarks and Kasey's, and, very notably, Tony's (first comment), in which he says some very nice things about my approach to Flarf. I think Tony is right to insist on the Google aspect, and I continue to be puzzled by the "community spirit" of the Flarf List. It has been suggested that its reaction to criticism and its insistence on being read "closely" is itself part of "the joke". I don't know. And I don't really care. Even if some sort of joke is ultimately "on me", I have found reading Flarf in my own way very rewarding. In fact, reading through the posts and comments, some of which are quite extensive, I don't think there is any hope that I can find a position to occupy and defend, so I'm just going to make it my goal to make Tony Tost Flarf's biggest fan. That is, I'm going to take up his challenge and read at least one flarfy poem every day for a month and write a post about it. My model will be Jonathan's various reading and listening projects over at Bemsha Swing. Feel free to prod and spur me if I miss a day.

Tomorrow, then, I will answer the question, "Does Your Poetry Hold Up?" (PDF)

Lovely as a Pendulum

Flipping through The Spice-Box of Earth, I just noticed Leonard Cohen's "The Girl Toy". Its theme is reminiscent of E.T.A. Hoffman's "The Sandman", about a beautiful automaton. Two lines struck me immediately:

where now the weeds involved the trees

which is the image of an untended garden, and

she lovely as a pendulum,

which is the image of a beautiful girl, offered in contrast to "he obese and old", which precedes it. I suspect that the second of these was the first line Cohen wrote. He wrote the poem, I want to say, in order to use that line. One knows women who are lovely as pendulums but one cannot use that image without explaining it. Cohen gives us a metaphor: a girl made by a clockmaker who has "learned to work in flesh".

Let the weeds involve the trees, I say; my girl is lovely as a pendulum. [She is a clockwork made of flesh.] I think we here have a poem that has made it possible to say such things. And that, after all, is what poems are for.

New Jacket

Jacket 36 is now online. I have an article in there about Nabokov's "rain sparkling crystograms". It's done very much in the spirit of my "Interaction of Cheese" in Fascile 1. I like this style, and I have one more like this in the works.