Flarf• Originally a prank• Internet-based • Relies on Google • Odd juxtapositions• Grammatical inaccuracies• Celebrates deliberately bad poetry• Forced clichés & onomatopoeia • Often impolite – using swear words“Corrosive, cute, cloying awfulness. Wrong. Un-P.C. Out of control. Not okay”

Gary SullivanCartoonist – Author - Poet

Comic Book ElsewhereBlog: garysullivan.blogspot.com

Sharon MesmerAnnoying Diabetic Bitch – collection of flarf poetry published in 2008Blog: virginformica.blogspot.comTeaches at the New School in Manhattan

flarf

K. Silem MohammadTeachers English & Writing at Southern Oregon University

Published many books of poetryDeer Head Nation A Thousand DevilsBreathalyzer The Front The Sonnagrams (turned Shakespeare’s sonnets into anagram sonnets in iambic pentameter – example on next slide)

(Anagrams: Torchwood – Doctor WhoI Am Lord Voldemort – Tom Marvelo Riddle)

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O! that you were your self; but, love, you areNo longer yours, than you your self here live:Against this coming end you should prepare,And your sweet semblance to some other give:So should that beauty which you hold in leaseFind no determination; then you wereYourself again, after yourself's decease,When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,Which husbandry in honour might uphold,Against the stormy gusts of winter's dayAnd barren rage of death's eternal cold? O! none but unthrifts. Dear my love, you know, You had a father: let your son say so.

A groovy day, a fish fillet, an elf hair,A cosmonaut, a microdot, a hoedown,A trusty door, the finest whore on welfare,A neocon who’s keeping on the lowdown,

A purple fist, a Federalist, a sunspot,A bird that’s got a big big butt to study,A guy named Toots, ten dumb galoots, a gunshot,Die Fledermaus by good ol’ Strauss (my buddy),

A grinning troll, a real a-hole, a smiler,A dude who knows a gushing hose is funny,An underdressed (no tie, no vest) John Tyler,A sexy flirt, a cowboy shirt — oh honey!

I’ll flip you for a dinosaur, my sweeties,When Uncle Pete lets Usher eat our Wheaties.

So are you to my thoughts as food to life,Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground;And for the peace of you I hold such strifeAs 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found.Now proud as an enjoyer, and anonDoubting the filching age will steal his treasure;Now counting best to be with you alone,Then better'd that the world may see my pleasure:Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,And by and by clean starved for a look;Possessing or pursuing no delightSave what is had, or must from you be took. Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day, Or gluttoning on all, or all away.

Nada GordonBlog: ululate.blogspot.com