Jack Kimball points to this post by Chris Daniels. the needle swings high on the Than Thou metre in his post, so you'll have to do some weeding. Daniels is very much right to point out the irony aspect of google-searched works. I need go no further than my own attempts at the modus. some of the things I've created read snide, even tho I didn't mean that. a certain luridness attaches to the explorations: you're listening in. yet the internet is public, e'en tho users of it forget this all the time. so yeah, one can fall into irony. irony as a means is all right, it's irony as a lifestyle where things go crap. Daniels doesn't mention specific poems, which pretty well drains his argument of insight beyond the usual righteousness of bloc mentality. "the flarfistes disrespect ordinary working people in the most patronizing manner". which is what Daniels does in this post, not to make flarf poets the epitome of downtrodden. without tuning in to the poetry itself, this whole argument just drums on as rant, which is a genre without subject. I have read flarf-type poetry that was not ironic, that was indistinguishable from 'real poetry'. I have myself written one or 2 pieces myself that succeed by the purest avowals of poetry that I can make. the assumption that those using these methods are not aware of the issues is an assumption. like Hoy's tender attributions, the claims are 2nd hand at best. Robert Fitterman spoke of how his google search works were a reaction to 9/11. "I like the personal, it just doesn’t have to be my own." I think that statement encloses the exact opposite of what Daniels claims of flarf. Fitterman made available his talk on appropriation at his reading saturday (ooops, syntax alert), and I guess I can send a copy of it to anyone who asks. or write John Dooley via the Demolicious.net site. Daniels had ought, for as it stands, he's arguing with himself.