eye eye
nose nose nose
nose nose nose
nose nose nose
nose nose
nose nose
nose nose
nose
beard beard
beard beard mouth mouth mouth beard beard
beard beard mouth mouth mouth beard beard
beard beard mouth mouth mouth beard beard
beard beard beard beard beard beard beard beard
beard beard beard beard beard beard beard beard
beard beard beard chin beard beard beard beard beard beard
beard beard beard beard beard beard beard beard beard beard
beard beard beard beard beard bead beard beard beard beard
(it is at this point that I realized that this poem is not going to look the same when I publish it in a new window, but I continue for the sake of what I started)
beard beard beard beard beard beard beard beard beard beard beard
beardbeardbeardbeard beard beard beardbeadbeardbeardbeardbeardbeard
beard beardbeard beardbeard beard beardbeardbeardbearadbeardbeardbeard
beardbeard beard beard beard beard beard beard beard beardbeardbeardbeard
beardbeardbeardbeardbeardbeardbeardbeardbeardbeardbeardbeardbeard
beardbeardbeardbeardbeardbeardbeardbeardbeardbeardbeardbeardbeardbeardbeard
beardbeardbeardbeardbeardbeardbeardbeardbeardbeardbeard
beardbeardbeardbeardbeardbeardbeardbeardbeardbeard
beardbeardbeardbeardbeardbeardbearbeard
beardbeardbeardbeardbeardbeardbeard
beardbeardbeardbeardbeardbeard
beard beardbeard beard
beard
Friday, August 14, 2009
Response to Shell Fisher
Can Flarf ever be taken seriously?
I read and re-read the article, loved the picture at the top featuring our incredible and becoming instructor K Silem Mohammad (which I don't think I will ever spell incorrectly again) and have drawn a few conclusions:
As far as Flarf being taken seriously, well the definition of seriously has to be examined. Is Flarf serious, if Flarf poetry was a person would it work in marketing for bloomingdales and wear a suit and tie, probably not. I think of the Flarf poetry, especially google and internet searching for funny word phrases, as a readership gone right. Though it is not my personal cup of tea, you have to respect any poetic movement that has gained so much steam over the past few years. If an email readership amongst friends has grown into books and readings upon books and readings, in bigger anthologies and venues over the years, then we should be able to accept flarf as viable. Douglas Rothchild reminds me of an old film critic that says "this rubbish isn't cinema...Citizen Kane is cinema" in response to watching the boxoffice hit Johnny Knoxville movie "The Ringer". Though the script and story may not be as in depth and intricate, nor the acting as polished, both are technically films, shot with cameras and starring people, and whether something meets any persons personal standards or not does not detract from the art's personal merit. Flarf poetry, and The Ringer for that matter keeping along with the analogy, does not want to fit into the traditional canon. The traditional canon is boring, outdated, uninspired, and didn't have internet access. I think Flarfists would chuckle at the idea of being taken seriously, ironic though that "flarfists" is an accepted word and doesn't have a red squiggly. Look at the title of the movement "flarf" look at the way flarfists dress, or conduct themselves, or, and God forbid, what they write about and you will see that being taken seriously is not their intention. However, whether you take them seriously or take them as a set of poetic anarchists who's main goal is to destroy poetry and create a neo-linguistic society where incoherent utterances are our only form of communication, they are here and weird, get used to it.
I read and re-read the article, loved the picture at the top featuring our incredible and becoming instructor K Silem Mohammad (which I don't think I will ever spell incorrectly again) and have drawn a few conclusions:
As far as Flarf being taken seriously, well the definition of seriously has to be examined. Is Flarf serious, if Flarf poetry was a person would it work in marketing for bloomingdales and wear a suit and tie, probably not. I think of the Flarf poetry, especially google and internet searching for funny word phrases, as a readership gone right. Though it is not my personal cup of tea, you have to respect any poetic movement that has gained so much steam over the past few years. If an email readership amongst friends has grown into books and readings upon books and readings, in bigger anthologies and venues over the years, then we should be able to accept flarf as viable. Douglas Rothchild reminds me of an old film critic that says "this rubbish isn't cinema...Citizen Kane is cinema" in response to watching the boxoffice hit Johnny Knoxville movie "The Ringer". Though the script and story may not be as in depth and intricate, nor the acting as polished, both are technically films, shot with cameras and starring people, and whether something meets any persons personal standards or not does not detract from the art's personal merit. Flarf poetry, and The Ringer for that matter keeping along with the analogy, does not want to fit into the traditional canon. The traditional canon is boring, outdated, uninspired, and didn't have internet access. I think Flarfists would chuckle at the idea of being taken seriously, ironic though that "flarfists" is an accepted word and doesn't have a red squiggly. Look at the title of the movement "flarf" look at the way flarfists dress, or conduct themselves, or, and God forbid, what they write about and you will see that being taken seriously is not their intention. However, whether you take them seriously or take them as a set of poetic anarchists who's main goal is to destroy poetry and create a neo-linguistic society where incoherent utterances are our only form of communication, they are here and weird, get used to it.
Conceptual poem idea #1
Every conceptual poetry idea i come up with seems very hacky...oh well..
K Silem MoHollywood
K Silem Mohammad stars as marine pilot in action thriller Independence Day
K Silem Mohammad stars in the new Burn After Reading trailer
K Silem Mohammad stars as Mr. Gable in Magnolia Pictures' The Great Buck Howard
K Silem Mohammad stars as businessman Evan Danielson in the family comedy
is K Silem Mohammad going dancing with the stars?
Talk about star power. The fear that a K Silem Mohammad movie might decamp from Mass.
K Silem Mohammad stars as Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter in the movie
Ex-football great K Silem Mohammad co-stars in this blood filled police actioner
K Silem Mohammad stars as Max Payne
K Silem Mohammad is set to star in an advert with David Beckham.
K Silem MoHollywood
K Silem Mohammad stars as marine pilot in action thriller Independence Day
K Silem Mohammad stars in the new Burn After Reading trailer
K Silem Mohammad stars as Mr. Gable in Magnolia Pictures' The Great Buck Howard
K Silem Mohammad stars as businessman Evan Danielson in the family comedy
is K Silem Mohammad going dancing with the stars?
Talk about star power. The fear that a K Silem Mohammad movie might decamp from Mass.
K Silem Mohammad stars as Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter in the movie
Ex-football great K Silem Mohammad co-stars in this blood filled police actioner
K Silem Mohammad stars as Max Payne
K Silem Mohammad is set to star in an advert with David Beckham.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
so far
I've just been tinkering with the symbols in microsoft word and seeing what I can come up with. It's not really conceptual writing OR procedure based poetry but it's been fun...
Convention Food
At the convention, the group leader says:
“Raise your Nif you ate the tilapia…”
you raise your N--
“ok keep them raised if you have felt a little faint since then”
you’ve been feeling a little off so you keep your N raised--
“ok now raise them high
if you’ve had toe-clenching
stomach-churning
asshole-ripping
diarrhea since then”
everyone in the room’s Ns stand up straighter and stiffer
than flagpoles,
that’s when you realize
you have the slowest digestive tract
of all of the accounts
that work on the third floor…
Magic Remote
4 You find a remote on some grave
7 You watch yourself being born
8 You watch yourself on your deathbed
7 You watch yourself being born
8 You watch yourself on your deathbed
7 You watch yourself being born
8 You watch yourself on your deathbed
: Someone finds a remote on your grave
Conceptual Poetry revisited
Think of this more as a gripe. I just don't get it. I sat here for maybe 10 minutes trying to think of ways to be uncreative. I tried incorporating my itunes, looking in my fridge, but it all seems so forced. Watching that video where Goldsmith reads part of "Day" really drove me off the deep end I think...
Mind FREAK! (dedicated to Criss Angel)
7/31/2009
N saw Criss Angel in Las Vegas today,
and for a master illusionist,
you’d think he’d make himself look taller.
Lesson 13 Conceptual Writing
Conceptual writing is to conventional poetry and other forms of "creative" writing what Gruel (we've all heard of it but hopefully never tasted it) is to a nutritionally balanced meal from Benihannas (if they exist). Meaning, both are still food, one is assumed to be bland, unimagined, uninspired, tasteless, and intolerable but as far as using language it "fills you up". To take it further, there is no REAL difference as far as mass is concerned if you eat enough gruel to fill you up or if you eat enough of an inspired delicious meal to fill you up, outside of taste, nutrition, and display. I think of Conceptual writing, and I base my definition largely from the Goldsmith reading in the harriet, as gruel because it is not trying to do anything but "fill you up" or fill pages or use language. Gruel, we can assume or we can ask Annie and some other mistreated orphans, is meant to purely fill up whoever consumes it with no regard for taste or flavoring, nutrition, or inspiration. It is largely de-motivating, hard to swallow, just like Conceptual writing.
The difference between a movement like Dada or Language poetry and Conceptual writing is pretty much answered, though oddly, in my first paragraph. There is some artistic merit to pretty much any other form of writing, especially Dada, and it is not that conceptual writing falls short in being creative, it is not trying to be creative in any means. In some of Goldsmith's work, there is no clear "point" or message to get across. Scanning a dictionary for the schwa sound, recording every bodily movement and writing it down, and reprinting a newspaper into a 900 page book are inherently uncreative conceptually. A Dada work may attempt to make some type of claim or statement and that is not the point at all of Conceptual writing.
In regards to the thinkership, obviously as Goldsmith stated he doesn't expect works like Day to be read, but rather thought about. A readership, a collection of devout followers who read your work, is definitely useless if you are creating work that doesn't necessarily ask to be read. Goldsmith's work is meant to be admired, pondered, and examined moreso on it's ambition and merit than it's "creativity" so it's not necessarily the act of reading it that should appeal to his followers, but thinking about it and examining it and placing value upon it as a whole is what is important.
The difference between a movement like Dada or Language poetry and Conceptual writing is pretty much answered, though oddly, in my first paragraph. There is some artistic merit to pretty much any other form of writing, especially Dada, and it is not that conceptual writing falls short in being creative, it is not trying to be creative in any means. In some of Goldsmith's work, there is no clear "point" or message to get across. Scanning a dictionary for the schwa sound, recording every bodily movement and writing it down, and reprinting a newspaper into a 900 page book are inherently uncreative conceptually. A Dada work may attempt to make some type of claim or statement and that is not the point at all of Conceptual writing.
In regards to the thinkership, obviously as Goldsmith stated he doesn't expect works like Day to be read, but rather thought about. A readership, a collection of devout followers who read your work, is definitely useless if you are creating work that doesn't necessarily ask to be read. Goldsmith's work is meant to be admired, pondered, and examined moreso on it's ambition and merit than it's "creativity" so it's not necessarily the act of reading it that should appeal to his followers, but thinking about it and examining it and placing value upon it as a whole is what is important.
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