Flarf Poetry

Flarf poetry is an avant garde poetry movement of the early 21st century. The term Flarf was coined by the poet Gary Sullivan, who also wrote and published the earliest Flarf poems. Its first practitioners, working in loose collaboration on an email listserv, used an approach that rejected conventional standards of quality and explored subject matter and tonality not typically considered appropriate for poetry. One of their central methods, adapted from Drew Gardner, was to mine the Internet with odd search terms then distill the results into often hilarious and sometimes disturbing poems, plays, and other texts. Pioneers of the movement include Michael Paradis, Jordan Davis, Katie Degentesh, Drew Gardner, Nada Gordon, Mitch Highfill, Sharon Mesmer, Mel Nichols, K. Silem Mohammad, Michael Magee, Rodney Koeneke, Rod Smith, Gary Sullivan and others.