The reason for FLARF is to be found here:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/toc.html#6290

I've made a cursory attempt at reading this smut but to no avail. It isn't worth reading. There's Charles Simic...yes...THE Charles Simic rattling on about some lady that isn't going to live long enough to throw out the paper plates after she serves some water melon. There's Hoagland (no, not that Hoagland) trying to make everyone feel guilty. Some up and coming poet writes the last line:

An ounce for the gorgeous man in the gutter,
the beggar-poet cries, and some crab legs with clarified butter!

There's a housewife poem and a poem about four hour priapism. I mean, couldn't he have interjected that priapism just for kicks? My Lord.

There is a poem about the wonderful capybara...one of my all-time favorite zoo beasts but all the same, it is nothing more than a gimmick employed to make comparisons about "life". Good old "life". I just love "life"...such a wonderful premise for a poem, "life".



Therefore, FLARF exists because the language of poetry has become dismal. The idea is threatened with non existence and the, ahem, identity crisis of poets isn't at all an identity crisis.....these poets seem to think they are doing just fine!

They aren't. This is truly miserable poetry and it is found in, ahem, a notable magazine. Jordan Davis got it right when he issues this:


PICTURES OF BUGS BUNNY DRESSED LIKE A THUG


What drove me to draw this picture
Of Bugs Bunny dressed like a thug?


Plural. Pictures. Not once did I sketch
The buff tattooed torso of Thug Bugs


But many times, over several days.
He looks mean, doesn’t he? When O when


Will this election be over
So I can blow off life again


Without inadvertently producing objects
Of great and mysterious-to-me beauty.



One only hopes his tongue was thoroughly lodged in his cheek when he did.