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Blogs > kzoopair > Take two- they're small

Cut ups, flarf and going with the flow  

kzoopair 73M/71F
8610 posts
4/29/2015 8:06 pm
Cut ups, flarf and going with the flow

The flarf poem I posted isn't properly flarf poetry, according to the criteria of the earliest practitioner, Gary Sullivan. Flarf was more a hoax and an insult. He was put off by the quality of a lot of the poetry he was reading, especially on a particular website, and by finding his own name attached to poems he didn't write, and considered to be awful. So he contrived to submit a truly awful poem to a contest there, and was shocked to be named a finalist. Beauty IS in the eye of the beholder. One poet said that she searched specifically for "awful" phrases and pasted together her poems from these.

The whole thing struck me as more than a little pretentious and arrogant. I'm not a poet. But after an initial "what the hell is this shit" moment, I read a few more poems by Sharon Mesmer and found myself laughing a lot. The poets mine the internet, especially a well known search engine that is almost universally used, gooooooogly.
They then use a cut and paste method to assemble the verses.

This owes a lot to William S. Burroughs cut up and fold in techniques that he used in writing such punk icon books as "Exterminator", "Soft Machine" and "The Ticket that Exploded". Burroughs explained that he was trying to break old patterns of thinking, and of reading. We get used to oft repeated phrases and sequences of words and almost unconsciously write them and just as unconsciously absorb them when reading. He hoped to try to bring the art of collage to literature by juxtaposing phrases that conjure up unfamiliar images in the mind- at least in a new and unfamiliar way. To force us to think about what we are reading.

My own first attempt at flarf poetry is more of a cut up. I had for years thought about mining my spam folder for outrageous lines. I'd give examples right now but unfortunately I emptied that folder about an hour before I decided to write this explanatory post. I was talking about my first foray into flarf poetry with my wife and a friend yesterday, so it was on my mind. The first post I read today was by [blog _Lady_X_], [post 3625055]. She wanted to do a post promoting some of the male blogs she likes on the site- guys who are polite and respectful to other bloggers, and who are thoughtful about life in general. It was an attempt to promote fellowship and a sense of community, and to concentrate on the positive- that there are a lot of great guys blogging here, instead of criticizing the less than stellar performers.

She listed fifteen male bloggers that she was sure we'd enjoy reading. I had a eureka moment. I would mine these blogs for phrases that simply caught my eye- no other real reason. Just wherever my glance landed and liked the phrase. So, it isn't properly what flarf poets do- I wasn't looking for off-putting or awkward phrases. I wasn't looking for offensive subject matter. In fact, quite the opposite.

So, I visited all fifteen blogs and "mined" them. I listed them in groups by blogger and then set a rule for my first poem, fifteen lines, one line from each blog, and in random order. That was refining the ore. I then rearranged them to form a somewhat more coherent message. Metallurgy. The message that emerged turned out to be a love poem, Flarfing a lady. I liked it. My wife PD liked it.

I went where the phrases took me, selecting them at random at first, and then as a theme emerged, picking whatever I liked that seemed to fit. Once that line "No one needs you more than I need you" popped up, I knew where I wanted to go. The thing wrote itself. I just kind of bumped it now and then, kind of like pinball.

I haven't had a chance today to play around with my mined data any more. Things got busy, and now I'm way behind reading my watched blogs. My original intent was to flarf all day. Some of the early tries were pretty funny.

I'd appreciate your comments on the poem, and any future submissions. It ain't for everyone, but the connection to the godfather of punk, William S. Burroughs was irresistible to me, and I liked the fact that I was using exclusively material from this site. Incidentally, the blogs I read were good ones. I enjoyed them all, and I very likely would not have visited them without my friend's prompt.
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kzoopair 73M/71F
25831 posts
4/29/2015 8:16 pm
    Quoting  :
Ah, thanks for that! You know Sweet, it was a lot more fun to do than I ever figured it would be. Some of the combinations are hilarious. I'm hoping to play around with it some more. Thanks again for that wonderful remark.
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nightsoul1962 61F
17828 posts
4/29/2015 9:02 pm

 ^5 for flarfing!!! I just "mined" you as I do enjoy your posts!
WITHOUT PASSION LIFE IS NOTHING


kzoopair 73M/71F
25831 posts
4/29/2015 9:10 pm
    Quoting nightsoul1962:
    ^5 for flarfing!!! I just "mined" you as I do enjoy your posts!
Cool! Thanks!
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kzoopair 73M/71F
25831 posts
4/29/2015 9:57 pm
    Quoting  :
It's good for the digestion.
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petitandnaughty 113F
Ask me for a photo
9755 posts
4/29/2015 10:52 pm

 I didn't know what flarfing was until this post. Thank you for explanation. Had I known, I'd be laughing for entirely different reason while reading your previous post.
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kzoopair 73M/71F
25831 posts
4/29/2015 11:35 pm
    Quoting petitandnaughty:
    I didn't know what flarfing was until this post. Thank you for explanation. Had I known, I'd be laughing for entirely different reason while reading your previous post.
Well, I could have offered the explanation first, but I like surprises. Sometimes. And I kind of wanted to see a few reactions to it too, before I talked about how it was done. I read Burroughs' cut ups and fold ins. They can be hard to read- you get used to reading in just those patterns that he was trying to avoid and it's disconcerting, disorienting. I think he was OK with that. For me, the cut ups work best as poetry. Fold ins were taking two facing pages of a book and folding them so they meet in the middle and then transcribing. When I first read about what flarfing was initially FOR, it kinda pissed me off. Hoaxes can be fun but it just seemed snarky to me- like "You're so dumb you'll even like this shit!" Apparently they had ME figured correctly because I began laughing my ass off at "Evil Polish Boners" and "Fisting as an Act of Faith". I might try some adult flarf- even the name is funny, adult flarf. But just the tepid attempt that I did was fun. You find all these nuggets in the blogs and can't wait to deploy them.
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spunkycumfun 63M/69F
41171 posts
4/30/2015 2:32 am

 I'm going to enjoy your flarfing adventures!


canyaz 56F
17128 posts
4/30/2015 5:07 am

 I have never been a fan of poetry. My mother's fault. She was a dramatic reader. I am not. That said, I did enjoy your flarf.
There is a difference between a good BJ and a bad BJ.
canyaz


kzoopair 73M/71F
25831 posts
4/30/2015 5:12 am
    Quoting spunkycumfun:
    I'm going to enjoy your flarfing adventures!
I just got up and I haven't flarfed yet. It's amazing how quickly it became an essential part of maintaining a healthy constitution. This is powerful stuff- powerful and addictive. One shot and you're hooked for life.
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kzoopair 73M/71F
25831 posts
4/30/2015 5:15 am
    Quoting  :
"The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus the wise say the path to Salvation is hard."

Listen to me- I haven't been near a razor in forty years!
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kzoopair 73M/71F
25831 posts
4/30/2015 5:25 am
    Quoting canyaz:
    I have never been a fan of poetry. My mother's fault. She was a dramatic reader. I am not. That said, I did enjoy your flarf.
I love reading poetry. I have no talent for creating it. I love the absurd, the inane and the non-sensical, so I took to this right away. There's something nihilistic or mystical about this stuff, depending on how you cock your head and look at it, allowing meaning to creep out of what we THINK are random phrases. I can't exactly explain why I selected the particular lines I mined, and I'm certainly not going to try. I didn't list them randomly though, so I suppose that's cheating. I took one from each blogger and rearranged them until I liked what I read.
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kzoopair 73M/71F
25831 posts
4/30/2015 6:23 am
    Quoting mcmaniac:
    I liked the part: "Be Sure To Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair"
    into her sex therapist's office
    -excellent! I thought "flarfing" was something else!
"I thought "flarfing" was something else!"

It is!
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sweet_VM 65F
81699 posts
4/30/2015 8:02 am

 I never heard of flarfing until you posted.. See you can learn something new on this site! I love poems. I think most will now try a flaring adventure after your post! Have a great day KZ. hugssssssssss V
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kzoopair 73M/71F
25831 posts
4/30/2015 9:18 am
    Quoting sweet_VM:
    I never heard of flarfing until you posted.. See you can learn something new on this site! I love poems. I think most will now try a flaring adventure after your post! Have a great day KZ. hugssssssssss V
Once you start you may not be able to stop...and please keep those hugs coming!
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kzoopair 73M/71F
25831 posts
5/3/2015 2:06 pm
    Quoting Megan6627:



    I am not a poet by most definitions,
    but I use Haiku on my blog
    and now I am concerned it is a form of flarfing…..
    Yikes!!!


I wouldn't worry about it if I were you. Nobody understands poets or poetry, and everyone thinks both are fucking weird, including the poets themselves. That's why they do it. That's why I did it. I never thought of myself as a poet but I was sure I was weird, and I needed to establish some credentials.
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humorlife 56M  
5710 posts
7/21/2015 8:53 am

 Where the hell have I been that I haven't commented on this until now? I knew that you had done it, and I loved both the method and the result... hope you'll pick a random day and do it again!

Great, great writing exploration. I hadn't known about flarfing either, although i did know about Burroughs and his cut up method.

God, words can be fun...
Stop in, read, and offer comments at my "swinging as seen in the media" blog, "Confessions of a Lifestyle Man" humorlife, which is also the home of the monthly virtual symposium. New post: The Virtual Symposium Returns Lets Pick A Topic


kzoopair 73M/71F
25831 posts
7/21/2015 3:15 pm
    Quoting humorlife:
    Where the hell have I been that I haven't commented on this until now? I knew that you had done it, and I loved both the method and the result... hope you'll pick a random day and do it again!

    Great, great writing exploration. I hadn't known about flarfing either, although i did know about Burroughs and his cut up method.

    God, words can be fun...
Oh, shit happens!
I think I covered in the post and the comments that I was always interested in cut ups and fold ins, the sort of random way of expression. I think it works best as verse- you're expecting a series of mental images, whereas in prose it comes as something of shock. The thing is, you're STILL using phrases that we've been conditioned to, even though they're broken up a bit. As verse, there will still be some editorial selection going on in your head whether it's conscious or not. But you CAN come up with writing that surprises you as the writer, and is quite thought provoking. Words ARE fun, and they will surprise. I had no clue how The Shadow The Shadow The Shadow War would turn out or what it would say till I began writing it, and THAT was fun and enlightening.
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