It's too bad only one dude from The Cult Clique made it to last night's Stephen Rodefer reading at the Poetry Project--he's pretty much writing the kinds of poems most of the Kool-Aid Krowd wishes they were writing. Don't take my word for it, check the videotape (if it ever appears--it is long) Update: Rejected by Youtube for length. Will edit this weeked.

How a handful of the most sensitive poets in the universe decided to band together to form a Superfriends Marketing Alignment with Blog Product Placement of poems which are only offensive in the way they're relentlessly overhyped but who cannot handle the kinds of basic things that go on in comments fields continues to amaze. I just don't get it. Like the big bang. How that happen? Ultimately the people on The Flarf Cult E-mail Conspiracy are the only readers of The Great Flarf Swindle in the first place. Most everybody else is too busy reading Oooga-Booga to give much of a crap. It is heartening that they are bringing Professional Publicists into the fold. I only hope Degentesh can be made Poet Laureate before we swear in our next president.

The divine right of Self-Promotion has never been in better shape in our Art and the wheel of hype will run right over your neck (and you'll like it). The only way through poems is to get books, readings, Jacket magazine retrospectives about yourselves and then to worry about what all the little blogs are writing about you. Enjoy the 70 year ride. Attempts to destroy me will fail: I am doing a fine job of destroying myself without you. When you come to grips with just how little power you have (and have over me) you will come to a Buddha like breath of minty freshness. Om, powerlessness. Om, no audience. Om, poetic movements are the new bowling leagues. Your friends are not the only poets. And like I can no longer be friends with professors, I can no longer be friends with anyone except those who don't really take themselves all that seriously, can take a joke and like to give their friends a hard time. Your craven self-involved earnestness might light the faculty room on fire. But here your baubles won't buy you an Almond Joy.

I'd say anyone further compelled by it ought to attend one of their world tour events. Experience the long, relentless not-funny for yourself. And take two in the morning.



I CAN NO LONGER BE FRIENDS WITH PROFESSORS


my navel will grow ferocious teeth and eat your family

that's *it*, I'm switching to prose

I leave it all in your hands, magic party whore

everything depends upon the wheelbarrow

crammed up your ass or into the back of your Saab

though inside I remain a fluffy sobbing dandelion

this is great / I don't feel threatened by you at all

the air is purple and alive again

the Mary Tyler Moore Show theme is playing

now I remember where I know you from: The DSM IV

with that pvc taste in my mouth

in the future we'll sleep in aquariums podcasting

my love for you was a tasty bird to eat

while you were grading papers / sucking on tweed

isn't it strange the things we have to do to bodies to excite them

I adored the blurb you gave me so much

I wrote you a thank you blurb, all in italics

now sitting cross-legged in the faculty parking lot

the sky the color of tenure

conifers and elk-upchuck envigorating the pine-scented conservatism

nothing ma! no, we're not enriching uranium!

oh only in dreams do I get to relapse

PS: It's crappy poems like this that are too long, not funny and written in 30 seconds that make me think someone ought to be listening to Stephen Rodefer *even harder*. Is flarf writing the new bullshit stream-of-consciousness free-writing for the 21st Century? Stay tuned. I'm surprised this one snuck by the Cult Editorial Board.

PS2: Compare and contrast these flarf free writing craps and basically anything at the Special Jacket Issue. Flarf creates lowgrade mediocre poems that would probably still get into LIT.