Flarf poetry can be characterized as an avant-garde poetry movement of the late 20th century and the early 21st century. Its first practitioners utilized an aesthetic dedicated to the exploration of "the inappropriate" in all of its guises. Their method was to mine the Internet with odd search terms then distil the results into often hilarious and sometimes disturbing poems, plays, and other texts. Okay, that's what Wikipedia says. So how do you write the damn stuff?
'The older I get, the more I value sincerity and directness. I think it's tragic that "sincere", at least in the context of the arts, seems to have become a euphemism for "naïve", typically trotted out in a pejorative way to suggest "well-meaning but amateurish". What is sincerity, if not simply meaning what you say?' Kona Macphee's poetry is a refreshing change to much of the poetry you might have read in the past, honest, direct and accessible and all in a good way.
All writers are voyeurs but then so are all readers. And all writers are exhibitionists but not all writers want to reveal everything; they expect their readers to do some of the work. There are two styles of writing: explicit vs implicit. Both provide information that can lead us to the truth and both hold mirrors so that in addition to discovering the truths hidden in the text readers also have the opportunity to learn truths about themselves. What is this need to see all about?
What does 'I love you' mean to you? Author Jim Murdoch takes a long hard look at many different kinds of love that we are capable of, from romantic love through familial love, brotherly love and love of country to love of chocolate and discovers that love is anything but straightforward.
He who is the god of war and seas, Is the almighty brother of Zeus and Hades. Leaves behind his divinity, While making love to me. When I was floating in the sea of sorrows and sufferings, Poseidon saved me from drowning. With his three prolonged tridents, He killed the beast from my life.
In the second part of poet Jim Murdoch's exploration of the changing face of poetry he discusses the poetry of Frederick Seidel who has been called 'the poet the 20th century deserved,' the Greek poet, Elias Petropoulos whose ashes were thrown in a sewer in accordance with his wishes and Adorno's claim that "after Auschwitz writing poetry is barbaric." Keats wrote "Beauty is truth, truth beauty"-is that still true? Was it ever true?