there's been some thoughtful responses to flarf and its methods in the world out there, to go with the lameass monkey muddle from others. well, some inarticulateness ought to speak up too! so I snatch the opportunity. I've written maybe 100 poems within flarfian parametres. by flarfian I mean using various methods like Google searches to fashion texts that satisfy--to my mind at least--a sculptural sense of poetry. such processes are less linear than my usual close my eyes and type fast method of writing. flarf can be quite linear and narrative but the method of its production isn't (in my experience). I love taking a pile of words and doing something with it. the use of spellchecker, Babelfish and find and replace, along with the Googling, produces the ore, which then is refined. to me, Googling resembles beachcombing, where whatever I use as for the search is... oh wait, I'm slipping my metaphor, because I was about to say my search term was the hook. or trawl. I'm just looking for shiny things that catch my attention. and having caught it, I refine them. all righty. the fascinating thing is to be amidst all that expression. whether it is Britney or Rumsfeld, things are being talked about online. whatever my usage of this material, I am aware of the humanity in the words. the accusation that flarfists are making fun of the inarticulate just doesn't jibe with the sensation I get as I do searches. rather than mocking these articulations, I take them very seriously. I mean, how could one not? there's so much energy to these words. that's why they are of interest! in new context, these articulations meld into a strange new energy. the jarring dissonances are, indeed, musical in nature. a reader must remember that the context is new. the grossness and offense that one might perceive in some of the voicings must be understood within the poem's full context, not the inferred one of the source text. remembering, tra la, that poems are machines: you gotta have all the parts in place for it to work proper like. assertions of racism have been made against some flarf, Mike Magee's Asian Guys poem, for instance. it is fair to make the question. that discomfort is real. a power of flarf exists in the very witness of these offenses. I'm not taking the writer off the hook here. the reader's 1st duty is to determine if this poem is of interest. I've seen it in the twiddle that I've done, where the gathered weirdneses don't coalesce. a leering sort of interest might take over then. that's a failure in my book. or not in my book. the poem didn't survive the refining process... I don't know if that metaphor holds either but I'll pretend that it does. just as when I write, zippy zip, my usual way, and see the result as failed. what did I miss? where did I go wrong? flarf faces the same problems. balance, delicacy, degree. discomfort and impropriety have been mentioned as positions in flarf. I think flarf qua flarf (gotta love that qua) lives in the openness of possibility. but it's not just potty mouth, I don't see it so. in my own attempts, I've leaned more on the disjunctive oddities, cheek by jowl. alas nor am I as funny as many others. I don't think I can use the n-word and iothers such, I have my limits. I always want the possibility that any word or topic can be used in my work but I would shy away from some. I think some criticism of Mike's poem derives from a sense that he can't come at it from that direction. you fill in what 'it' and 'direction' mean in that sentence. I can only say, does the poem in its fullness say what you think. take a holistic view, maybe? really, poems don't say, they be. the misapplied familiarities and the disjunctions are troubling and difficult, and of course the blatant grossness that isn't softened at all. the assumption is that there's something worth fighting for, in all that midst. the procedures, they swtch the process around for me. rather than linear go, I'm forced to slow way down, hear each word in its peculiar situation. in my usual mode, I go back to see what I've down. when I go flarfy, I watch as the poem takes shape. I dunno how many of those 100 flarfisms that I've made that I would stand by. all of them in the sense of trying to learn something, but as pomes to stick in books with my name attached: it's a handful. working flarfily has been invigourating for me. I'm amazed how the poem writes itself. something unexpected turns up, changes what the poems doing, right before my eyes. it thrills to see that. I think attempting to write flarf has helped me to read it. hint hint. you know, see what's under the hood. nyway, these be some thoughts that have percolated up recently.