Spew us with some Flarf

[Louanne Learning]

I am in favour of anything that makes an artist more outlandish. We capture ourselves in our outlandishness. Screech, if you need to.

Poets.org defines Flarf poetry as follows –

Flarf: A quality of intentional or unintentional "flarfiness." A kind of corrosive, cute, or cloying, awfulness. Wrong. Un-P.C. Out of control. "Not okay."

A few quotes from an interesting read giving a dialectic description between conceptualism and Flarf, at Mainstream Poetry (I encourage you to read the entire article) -

Flarf is poetry. It is about everything that is not poetry.

Conceptualism is composed. Flarf is compost.

Flarf has an anaphylactic shock for every situation.

Conceptualism has one answer, and that is: being boring without being alienating.

Flarf, by not providing a motherfucking note to tell you what it's supposed to be, activates thought.

Flarf is Fortran roid rage: leggo my ego.

Conceptualism is a can-can in the bathroom mirror, the discourse of the shave.

The best conceptualism is readable and successful.

Flarf fails in doing what it sets its mind to, to be bad. Flarf is Goooooooooooood.

Poetry is Conceptualism.

Flarf is life.

And here from one of the original flarfists – poet Gary Sullivan -

Mm-hmm
Yeah, mm-hmm, it's true
big birds make
big doo! I got fire inside
my "huppa"-chimpTM
gonna be agreessive, greasy aw yeah god
wanna DOOT! DOOT!
Pffffffffffffffffffffffffft! hey!
oooh yeah baby gonna shake & bake then take
AWWWWWL your monee, honee (tee hee)
uggah duggah buggah biggah buggah muggah
hey! hey! you stoopid Mick! get
off the paddy field and git
me some chocolate Quik
put a Q-tip in it and stir it up sick
pocka-mocka-chocka-locka-DING DONG
fuck! shit! piss! oh it's so sad that
syndrome what's it called tourette's
make me HAI-EE! shout out loud
Cuz I love thee. Thank you God, for listening!



And so I invite you to write a Flarf poem and post it here.

 

[Louanne Learning]

I was inspired to write this flarf poem by the image of Will Farrell playing the cow bell on the SNL skit

The Cow Bell

Genius in the cow bell,
Pavlov’s dog has got nothing on this.
I’ll be a cow and not a dog,
Bow-wow, and ruff-ruff don’t beat
The belly,
Riveting my attention
More than Hitler.
Belly on my mind,
How deep is your button?
Why hide it?
The clanking says it all.
And keeps me anonymous.

 

[Heartlet Happer]

Sure
Yeah. Pst pst
In unexistent urban
Bache's fugah
Subwoofer basin
Audience captured
En masse from out in
My hair so wavey
In a wind sun blasting
On a high horse
Shiny me
No remorse
Silence
Music go slow
Tiny violin
From a pocket singin
What year of what day in spring
An outlandish poet
Was captured fast in place
On loopy train
In deepest forest
That he has ever been
In low glucose he spew the stream of words
And named it flarf spin
We have it ever since
On list of reasons
For aliens to stay unseen
Train comin out in
Tune off effect
Doppler dope
Fades
Mic drop

 

[Louanne Learning]

Sure

I love it!!!! Thanks so much for sharing

 

[Louanne Learning]

@Heartlet Happer - I just read it again. It's pure genius

 

[Heartlet Happer]

Haha thank you. I went by imitation of what I heard as rap poetry. But I don't know flarf, heard about it from you only now.

 

[Louanne Learning]

But I don't know flarf, heard about it from you only now.

I just learned about it today, and was instantly intrigued!

 

[Pending]

Why I am not invited to any more weddings

Gala tea and crunchy cakes
Part the party
Leave for leaves! Amazeing things.
But at the center of it all...
No! Bad Pygmalion.
Malike man marrying marriage marrying marriage
Egads. Gadzooks and other awful things.
A garden wedding, with stone as bride
Their moon is the ring
And Venus hangs beside to officiate
"Stop the wedding!"
I eat the statue
CRUNCH!
Kick the pyg
m
KAZERBAL!
explode the lion
BOOM!
then
with Aphrodite horrified
I marry the moon.

 

[Louanne Learning]

Why I am not invited to any more weddings

brilliant!! Really fits the genre. Thanks so much for sharing

 

[Louanne Learning]

And here from one of the original flarfists – poet Gary Sullivan -

I am fascinated this morning reading about Dada artist Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven (born Else Plötz) (1874-1927).

Despite Gary Sullivan's claim that he is the originator of Flarf poetry, Elsa had him beat by several decades.

Here is her poem, published 1927 -

A Dozen Cocktails Please​

No spinsterlollypop for me—yes—we have
No bananas I got lusting palate—I Always eat them— — — — — — —
They have dandy celluloid tubes—all sizes—
Tinted diabolically as a baboon’s hind-complexion.
A man’s a—
Piffle!
Will-o’-th’-wisp! What’s the dread
Matter with the up-to-date-American-
Home-comforts? Bum insufficient for the
Should-be wellgroomed upsy!
That’s the leading question.
There’s the vibrator— — —
Coy flappertoy! I am adult citizen with
Vote—I demand my unstinted share
In roofeden—witchsabbath of our baby-
Lonian obelisk.
What’s radio for—if you please?
“Eve’s dart pricks snookums upon
Wirefence. ”
An apple a day— — —
It’ll come— — — —
Ha! When? I’m no tongueswallowing yogi.
Progress is ravishlng—
It doesn’t me—
Nudge it—
Kick it—
Prod it—
Push it—
Broadcast— — — —
That’s the lightning idea!
S.O.S. national shortage of—
What ?
How are we going to put it befitting
Lifted upsys?
Psh! Any sissy poet has sufficient freezing
Chemicals in his Freudian icechest to snuff all
Cockiness. We’ll hire one.
Hell! Not that! That’s the trouble— —
Cock crow silly!
Oh fine!
They’re in France—the air on the line—
The Poles— — — — — —
Have them send waves—like candy—
Valentines— — — —
“Say it with— — —
Bolts !
Oh thunder!
Serpentine aircurrents— — —
Hhhhhphssssssss! The very word penetrates
I feel whoozy!
I like that. I don’t hanker after Billyboys—but I am entitled
To be deeply shocked.
So are we—but you fill the hiatus.
Dear—I ain’t queer—I need it straight— —
A dozen cocktails—please— — — —

 

[Homer Potvin]

I am fascinated this morning reading about Dada artist Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven (born Else Plötz) (1874-1927).

Despite Gary Sullivan's claim that he is the originator of Flarf poetry, Elsa had him beat by several decades.

Here is her poem, published 1927 -

A Dozen Cocktails Please​

No spinsterlollypop for me—yes—we have
No bananas I got lusting palate—I Always eat them— — — — — — —
They have dandy celluloid tubes—all sizes—
Tinted diabolically as a baboon’s hind-complexion.
A man’s a—
Piffle!
Will-o’-th’-wisp! What’s the dread
Matter with the up-to-date-American-
Home-comforts? Bum insufficient for the
Should-be wellgroomed upsy!
That’s the leading question.
There’s the vibrator— — —
Coy flappertoy! I am adult citizen with
Vote—I demand my unstinted share
In roofeden—witchsabbath of our baby-
Lonian obelisk.
What’s radio for—if you please?
“Eve’s dart pricks snookums upon
Wirefence. ”
An apple a day— — —
It’ll come— — — —
Ha! When? I’m no tongueswallowing yogi.
Progress is ravishlng—
It doesn’t me—
Nudge it—
Kick it—
Prod it—
Push it—
Broadcast— — — —
That’s the lightning idea!
S.O.S. national shortage of—
What ?
How are we going to put it befitting
Lifted upsys?
Psh! Any sissy poet has sufficient freezing
Chemicals in his Freudian icechest to snuff all
Cockiness. We’ll hire one.
Hell! Not that! That’s the trouble— —
Cock crow silly!
Oh fine!
They’re in France—the air on the line—
The Poles— — — — — —
Have them send waves—like candy—
Valentines— — — —
“Say it with— — —
Bolts !
Oh thunder!
Serpentine aircurrents— — —
Hhhhhphssssssss! The very word penetrates
I feel whoozy!
I like that. I don’t hanker after Billyboys—but I am entitled
To be deeply shocked.
So are we—but you fill the hiatus.
Dear—I ain’t queer—I need it straight— —
A dozen cocktails—please— — — —

That's Dada for you. Anti-rationalism as WWI ended the Enlightenment.

 

[Louanne Learning]

That's Dada for you

This woman lived and breathed art. She even turned herself into a piece of art. Here's one description of her -

She wore a trailing blue-green dress and a peacock fan. One side of her face was decorated with a canceled postage stamp (two-cent American, pink). Her lips were painted black, her face powder was yellow. She wore the top of a coal scuttle for a hat, strapped on under her chin like a helmet. Two mustard spoons at the side gave the effect of feathers.

Dada Baroness

There is ample evidence to suggest that the “Dada Baroness”, with her compulsion to invest mass-produced objects with totemic significance, exerted a strong influence on Duchamp’s ready…

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