288. The Anger Scale. Katie Degentesh (2006)
Here is a classic flarf book, exploiting the inherent surrealism of google search non-sequiturs. I met Katie on a trip to New York. She had studied with Gary Snyder in Davis.
The anger scale is a psychological test. All the poems have titles based on questions in the survey, so "I sometimes tease animals" would be a statement that you would agree with or strongly disagree with, etc... Out of context, these questions also acquire a surreal air. "I believe I am no more nervous than most others."
I was a defender of flarf back in the day, not a member of the group but friends with several who were. I guess I would still defend it, for its wit and fearlessness. This book is a good example of that, along with some Drew Gardner work from about the same time.
2 comments:
I, too, defended Flarf. Degentesh, in some detail.
It feels like the total past now.
Yes, I remember that you were interested in it. After that we had "unoriginal" conceptual poetry, and now maybe we will have AI poetry. Language poetry and flarf seem old hat.
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