Explakayshen

I will explicate "As Dolphins Languor," by Drew Gardner. I was going to explicate Gary Sullivan's "Mm-Hmm," but I then realized that parts of Gardner's poem were taken from a source that I had identified, and that it would be interesting to see the contrast of both poems. See the poem here. I would post it in the box, but the formatting does not transfer. This is an excerpt from a larger portion, but I do not have the resources to see the larger poem. Note that I am explicating from "awe yeah," to "B.O." To be totally honest, I am not sure where this poem starts and ends, because the formatting on the original web page is pretty bad.

The structure of the poem is varied, for lack of better wording. It starts off demonstrating a very conventional poetic structure, with the occasional long line. Reading through the poem, one can easily see that much of it is composed of poems from other sources, of which were flarfed. The speaker seems to be someone who is struggling with a past event(s), as demonstrated by the paging of the photo album. This person is placing some sort of blame on his or herself. The tone throughout reminds me of a manic, passionate fourteen year old girl using AIM language to make her feelings seem more relate able. It's almost as if some excerpts of the poem were taken directly from an online conversation. "Fluffy pumpkins," as seen in line 15, reminds me of a certain subculture. This being the people who wear shirts such as , "Can't Sleep, The Clowns Will Eat Me," or who say "Roar," like a dinosaur, in everyday life. It's rather impossible to explain, but the flarfer is using it to show the pointlessness of it, and how it bears no significance. The fact that it makes "sense" in a flarf poem, which is considered by many to be a low form of poetry and essentially meaningless, is rather humorous. I can picture people that I know of saying things like "fluffy pumpkins," while being completely serious, with ironic and kitsch, intentions.

Two devices that stand out the most are the use of capital letters, and the use of periods enclosed by brackets. The first instance is in line five, "I like to dress up in REALLY tight underwear pumpkin beavers..." I fear that I could read into Flarf poetry too much, and in this instance, I think that the use of capitals is to stress the tightness of the underwear. I picture this being said with a lot of annoyance, almost being screamed. This leads into the purpose of the periods that follow. Sullivan is using those to allow the reader to go back to her original topic. It's almost if the flarf is being used as an interruption. Reminds me very much of Molly Shannon in Superstar. This emphasis can again be seen in line 12, " my Latvian women's soccer team fantasy REAL bad." The enclosed periods are first seen near the middle of the poem, "awe yea the Whiteness glimmers in [...]" This is meant for the reader to fill in. It is a form of interactive poetry. After this, the flarfer/speaker again uses periods, "...Take the love Romeo and Juliet had." It's as if the speaker was at a loss for words, and then R&J popped in his head. I can see the facial expressions of someone doing this.


Now, when attempting to search for some origins of this poem, I came across a poem that the beginning was based off of. This was on a young girl's xanga site, and from what I could tell, it was not meant with any humor. It actually seemed as though she was passionate about what she was writing about. I am guessing that it was about some love interest, or some family memory.. of that I'm not quite sure. The poem was most likely attained via some Google search, and then flarfed.


I don't think that every word in the poem has a certain meaning or purpose, and I think that Flarf would be lessened if every word was evaluated. Rather, I think the random outbursts, at points, are meant to make one laugh. There is a particular scene in Freaks and Geeks where Lindsay Weir breaks out in uncontrollable laughter after a sequence of events. She is laughing at life, itself. It was either that or crying. And I think that Flarf poetry takes the former route in approaching the world.