For example -- the same moment you break the book's lock you start to live its story, as when you stop wanting something it comes to you. Flarf, does it really want to be bad poetry, or go straight into race class gender power bull, or compost all language? I know and you know and if you think it's something small, try again.

When children responded to Kenneth's "begin each line with I wish" by writing "I wish I was dead," nine out of ten times a follow-up question uncovered that the wish was to scare someone.

The bias now is to assume that the membrane between dangerous speech and actual injury is thin or non-existent. About speaking to humiliate -- I don't know, how much do you like William F. Buckley nowadays. It's not a good look. Now and again a diss track makes sense. But you know what's much, much worse -- overexplaining, meeting the critics halfway, pulling over to talk it out. Poetryland is filled with people who think "Good morning" is an insult and organize to defend themselves (pre-emptive strikes). Good luck explaining the liberating qualities of your transgressive poetics.

Look, flarf is a bunch of poets doing their best not to ruin a couple of very good ideas: Use the new tools, and feel free to be real/ridiculous/awful in the direction of anxiety. I wasn't kidding when I was introducing the flarf festival that I have no idea why other people would want to hear it. Me, I think it's real, ridiculous, and awful. Of those three qualities I prize one and tolerate another.