ain’t from the beyond
stan apps on gary sullivan’s poetics …
Gary’s poetics consists of decisively rejecting mysterious theatricality, and thereby creating an aesthetic of material accountability. The words in Flarf poems are materials that have been put there precisely so that a mysterious theatrical tone of all-knowingness from the beyond cannot develop. Instead, evidence of human foolishness and goofiness is there instead. The tone of Flarf poems is not really (or not only) a tone of willed outrageousness or silliness, as it may seem to be; the tone is a rejection of mysteriousness, and therefore an acceptance of words and phrases that can be accounted for as merely human.
lots to think about in this piece … not least of which is this matter of allowing that “religious” tone in any given poem … “mysterious theatricality” … “all-knowingness from the beyond” … something along these lines goes on in my poems even without me intending it … hinting something vaguely oracular that i try to undermine (how? with obscurities & non sequiturs?) because we shouldn’t “believe” a word of it …
(update) but then … there’s some kind of music … some sound … woven into the semantic level … that seems irresistable & necessary … & even if it doesn’t make its way into the poem … its still in my head … wanting out … which is funny because its a sound as much about the world as about my head
