Writing Prompt/Contest: Flarf!

(Writing Prompt/Contest Located at the Bottom)

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Hey y’all, you might remember me from my introduction as a mod to this site a couple months ago, from my occasional poems, or, hopefully not, from my removal of your post...Anyways, even if you don’t remember me, I hope to leave a slight impression on you, rather I hope Flarf leaves an impression on you.

You may ask (Yes, you, way in the back with a Forever 21 V-neck crop-top, flailing your arms) what the hell is flarf? Well, to understand the answer to that we should first look at the question “What is poetry?” Once again, you might throw your arm back up and bravely say, “Poetry is the best words in their best order” (Coleridge), or “Poetry is distilled thought”, or “Poetry is language strained through meter, rhyme, and/or sound devices”, or “Poetry is the spontaneous outflow of feeling” (Wordsworth), or “Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance” (Sandburg), or “Poetry is what gets lost in translation” (Frost), or “Poetry is Rebellion”, or “Poetry is Truth”, or “Poetry is experience translated into language in order to create a meaningful effect on the reader.”

Whichever definitions you hold allegiance with, I think we can all agree that Poetry is freaking hard to pin-down (preferably to a hard surface such as concrete), sum-up, or describe in a simple manner. Even so, you might feel pretty confident about your ability to point out poetry from non-poetry. I mean, at what point does something become poetry? Can a collage of randomly dropped slips of paper with phrases printed on them constitute a poem? Does a broken stain-glass window laying in the middle of the street constitute art? You might hesitate to lump Flarf into the category of Poetry (or even coherent language at all). Flarf mugs any previous definition of Poetry you may have had, removes it’s only functioning kidney, and then leaves it body rotting in the bathtub in the room of a two-star motel.

So then, what is Flarf and why did you take until the third paragraph to finally get to the damn definition, huh? (Shut up and I might just tell you) Simply put, Flarf is a modern-ish movement of Poetry that began in the early 2000s with its originator, Gary Sullivan. Perhaps the best way to begin is with his definition, “jangly, cut-up textures, speediness, and bizarre trajectories.” adding that flarf is “a kind of corrosive, cute, or cloying awfulness. Wrong. Un-P.C. Out of control. Not okay." Since then, many writers have kept on Flarfing it up, not only keeping the tradition alive, but expanding and evolving Flarf. Flarf is a reactionary movement. Gary Sullivan and others have used it as a tool to protest against traditional meaning and any sense of this-is-what-poetry-is-supposed-to-be. In my humble opinion, Flarf is similar to driving a car on and off the road, swerving into families on the sidewalk, crashing into a fire-hydrant and then backing up at 50 miles-n’-hour into a 100 year-old oak tree, catching fire and then rolling around in a pile of used and rusty needles.

Sooo, how can I begin to write amazing Flarf of my own? Flarf can be produced in a large spectrum of ways. Flarf can be created using techniques of Found Poetry. You can search through spam emails, google searches, advertisements on TV, billboards, or magazines for clippings of phrases, then collage together a clump of “awful” language, glueing it together with the sinew of texts from an ex-girlfriend. I advise you to just start writing. Find a tone, any tone, and then discard it like a stale condom. Start writing down phrases from an ad about learning your genetics and then toss in images you see while waiting in the doctor's office (I bet that fish is lonely in his tank). My personal angle on creating Flarf is Free Association. Essentially, I flip open my laptop; I open a google doc; I start typing random shit and hop from each feeling, each tone, each sound device, each rhyme, each image, each thought until I have about a quarter page or more of pure, homegrown Flarf.

(Here is where I shamelessly plug my own Flarf Twitter account https://twitter.com/FlarfVanity)

Anyways, I’m no expert, so I think it’s time you hear from a legend. Here are u/ActualNameIsLana ‘s thoughts on Flarf; “Flarf subverts not only the norms of standard grammar and punctuation, but of story narrative and the meaning of words themselves – even going so far as to sometimes use unintelligible word-fragments, baby-talk style gibberish, and straight up nonsense strings of alphanumeric characters. It is chaos and anarchy in word-form, taken to its absolute highest and furthest logical conclusion.”

If this didn’t quite sate your appetite for learning about Flarf, I would recommend reading through u/ActualNameIsLana ’s “How Not to Flarf” essay located within the “Bad Poetry” banner at the top of our community page. (Note: Switch to desktop mode if you are on mobile)

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To help you better understand Flarf, here are some of my favorite examples. Enjoy!

“Mm-hmm” by Gary Sullivan

Yeah, mm-hmm, it's true

big birds make

big doo! I got fire inside

my "huppa"-chimp™

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!

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This is the first recorded Flarf poem. “Mm-hmm” was written as a reaction to his father’s acceptance into a “poetry contest” scam shortly before his death. He submitted it to Poetry magazine in an effort to reduce poetry to the unsacred or stupid. Shockingly, this piece was one of the few accepted from a pool of over 1.2 million poems.

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“Poems About Trees” by K. Silem Mohammed

I have written a couple of poems about trees poems about trees and snakes and lakes and birds poems about nature and life in New England I write crappy poems and eat babies if you like poems about trees you’re in for a treat

when I get nervous I get hyper and bump into people I read to them what MapQuest gave me round during then in the mom seeker panties to help me narrow down the slut thing word jobs rawr I’m too stupid to be able to make my point clear

if you for critique you eventually works at what a chromosome disorder speech theory itch be responsible congratulations, really nice birth control is the most important challenge to vintage porn food stamps and then I thought only God etc. (i.e. chemicals about progesterone)

the woods are full of police 90% Khalil Gibran, 10% carved wooden men that can see souls at night but I, warlike, considering gray cream for attire enjoying impossible “nudes on ice,” more death (((it gets even better after this, and that Nada Gordon piece about unicorns and Hitler has an air of sublimity about it)))

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“stained scrum soapscrim soapscram scum (scrambled egg brain)” by u/fdsxeswbsf

fencepolar star pulls tides cyanide an ocean of dying where i cry the entire ocean like a cliché but real and true to you two heads too many questions about the crescent wrench you’ll unscrew my skin that’s the twist like a movie in reverse and regardless of your unstable floor like a rolling good time out the door and into my arms lover boy scout cuts down trees to build a fire to cook his own legs that he cut off for a badge he didn’t want…

recontextualizing seashells as things we live in like a hermit crab I haven't spoken to anyone in weakness of my shell lost i play hide and seek with my own homeless mermaids offer me the way back to shore where i’ll drown in the air like a fish with no wings or legs or feet or feelings crushing with the weight of the ocean all on one point like a nail a wet nail stuck into my chest the water is heavy and the coral pierces my torso when i lay at the seabed and i look like a flowerbed for fuckups…

like when I fails the big ravecar rave race reckless so i wasn’t wreck-less is more to do with the color of the thing orange would have been better because the car got scurvy since the sea bet against me and rigged the outcome for itself but i won anyway so it killed me with the nails like jesus i’m am jesus i died for a free meal a pasta time luncheon but shit without knowing things anything what is the way forward to a glade with a fairy bottom castle princess crystal helper like a pixie that floats around your head really really fast so it forms a halo but you aren’t an angel i’m the angel is jesus an angel he must be i must be.

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If you’ve managed to make it this far perhaps you’re are willing to go a tad further. I challenge each of you to write your own Flarf poem, using whatever method you want! (Found Poetry, Free Association...etc.) Post your poem in the comments below. Feedback links are not necessary! The top three Flarf poems (in terms of upvotes) shall enjoy the award of receiving detailed feedback on one post from myself. My personal favorite Flarf poem will receive detailed feedback on one post and a special PM with a picture of a super-duper, good dog.

If you don’t wanna try writing your very own Flarf poem, I encourage you to discuss either your feelings/thoughts or the impacts/merits of Flarf as a form of Poetry.

Submitted June 14, 2019 at 01:08AM by Casual_Gangster http://bit.ly/2KhC5vv