Flarf Reading #11

Mesmer, Sharon. 2007. "I Am Apparently Unable to Subscribe". Annoying Diabetic Bitch. Combo Books.

I think a case can made that the "badness" or "wrongness" of Flarf is a challenge to poetic expertise. More importantly, it challenges the idea that there is such as thing as emotional expertise. It gives feeling back to the amateur and that, I think, is the "humanity" that underlies a good piece of Flarf. It is part of its tone—a certain kind of lightness.

Take my word for it, I am not a lawyer.

I will return to this "I am not an authority on the subject" theme in my next post. The point can be generalized however: the speaking subject in this poem is definitely NOT a poet. That makes lyricism difficult, but also more effective when it comes about.

if I were able to subscribe I'd be your first born child,
so sleepy am I, so husband-free,
and old and apparently unable to find the opening of the sleeping bag.

The inability to subscribe (to mainstream, orthodox emotions?) is presented in a variety of ways and compared to not being able to drive, not being able to understand douching and (I like this one) secretly being Canadian. But a "straight" answer is attempted at the end, which is as poignant as keeping the milk in the cow:

Why the fuck am I apparently unable to subscribe?
Oh, that's right—I forgot to "invite myself."

One last piece of Flarf later today. Then on to other things.

Flarf Reading #10

Mohammad, K. Silem. 2003. "Puritan". Deer Head Nation. Tougher Disguises Press. Page 63.

I'm feeling a bit fatigued, Flarfed out. All this discipline. But I have always had an exit strategy. Tomorrow I'm going to read Sharon Mesmer's "I Am Apparently Unable to Subscribe" and on Saturday I will read Tony Tost's (for me seminal) "I Am Not the Pilot". Then I'm going to leave this alone for awhile. I feel a strong urge to read Tony now, and Ben Lerner, and Kate Greenstreet, and Lisa Robertson. So I'm going to do that next week.

Anyway, this poem starts with an albino giraffe. "Under the prying eyes of [a bunch of objects, a suggestion, a person,] I am a sex machine!" Then ("read on") a stanza about pants assigned to people who happen to have the same first names as poets associated with Flarf (Drew, Katie, Gary, Jordan) that closes with a call to find Michael Jordan's pants. Silliness, really. Just loosening us up. "Mind freshening," Ginsberg might say.

until you open your eyes—
until you learn to criticize—

The mood changes now. There's a lot of invective that is NOT intended to "romanticize/the October Revolution".

It is important to pause here and consider the situation, the mood. Since the poem is obviously fucking with us, at least in part, we can't make too much of objects and themes themselves. But we may, as readers, be in some sort of "state" at this point. Perhaps a bit like that scene in Goodfellas when Joe Pesci says, "Funny how?" Everything will depend on how the mood is resolved. And it is resolved thus:

many pledge allegiance to the "blood god"
I pledge allegiance to the freaky horse
who watches over me as I sleep

As Burroughs said: Wouldn't you?

Flarf Reading #9

Sullivan, Gary. 2001. "War Junkie". How to Proceed in the Arts. Faux Press. Page 48-49.

"Desert Storm footage cut & pasted in breakup story w/a thump." Once again, a poem that asks how do we love each other in this crazy mixed up world we live in?

Flarf Reading #8

Mesmer, Sharon. 2007. "The Nuclear Threat of Richard Chamberlain's Ass Stork". Annoying Diabetic Bitch. Page 94.

I don't remember exactly when it dawned on me how offensive the Cold War was and that the sort of "seriousness" that I had attributed to Shōgun as a twelve year-old was part of it. The War on Terror is of course just as offensive; it is a "Bloviating Ass Stork of Mythical Scope". My question when reading this poem is whether it offers a (satirical) critique of the current threat construct or a (lyrical) poem written under the terms of that threat. I always prefer the lyrical reading over the satirical one and, though I will grant it's a stretch, here's my thinking.

"I have never been able to forget," said an elderly Canadian who had been part of the nuclear disarmanent movement to George Woodcock, "the tragic love of those two young people!" They were talking about Orwell's 1984. Mesmer's poem, I submit, is not really about "the nuclear threat of Richard Chamberlain's ass stork" and a fortiori not about the wrongness of the Iraq War ("Fat ass Saddam is lucky if he has an outboard"). It is about "the object of the bewitched Tatiana's desire." It is about "touchy dong resin". To be sure, it IS "asshat week all over again" (Cold War = 1984 = Age of Terror). But that doesn't mean it's not still all about love.

Flarf Reading #7

Sullivan, Gary. 2006. "Poem". Self-published at Elsewhere, July 9, 2006.

This poem is a good demonstration of the combined effect of Google-sculpting and the Flarf aesthetic. As a critic, Gary Sullivan's work always makes me uneasy because it is always entirely possible that he's having me on in some important way. I feel as though I'm damned if I call it a poem, and damned if I don't. I judged "not poem" in the case of "Tarzan Workshop"; I'm going to judge "poem" in the case of "Poem".

It is stitched together out of a few jokes that can be found in various places on the Internet, a quiz meme and a few other odds and ends. None of it appears to be "written" by Sullivan in the ordinary sense. The poet's contribution is confined to cutting and pasting. One of the jokes has been attributed to Andy Rooney and Sullivan tells it pretty much entire. In one performance (available on YouTube) the audience seems to find it straightforwardly funny. One wonders if they find it "flarfy" too. Properly speaking, of course, it isn't. It's just an ordinary joke.

By stringing the rest of the jokes together in overlapping fragments, each derailing the others' progress, and throwing in some products and prices (not sure from where yet), we get a sort 1980s surrealism effect. Everything changes, however, with the introduction of the list of "dated" objects, which was taken from the meme. The quiz is an exercise in nostalgia. And it has precisely that effect here.

The result is that when we get to the last lines, which a Google search identifies as a verbatim transcription of a what is normally offered as a "groaner", the one-liner actually becomes poignant. Gary captures it masterfully in his performance. "Keep it in the cow," he whispers (after a "pause" that he might very well have written in himself).