Flarf, with a heaping side of irony

Flarf is a style of experimental poetry which usually relies on computer-generated inspirations, and which has been around since the turn of this century:

The flarf method typically involves using word combinations turned up in Google searches, and poems are often shared via email. When one poet penned a piece after Googling "peace" + "kitty," another responded with a poem after searching "pizza" + "kitty." A 2006 reading of it has been viewed more than 6,700 times on YouTube. It starts like this: "Kitty goes Postal/Wants Pizza..."

I'm old enough to remember the Mac's old poetry generator; you'd input a few keywords ("heart", "hypnotize", "leave", etc.), and it would spit out some hackneyed verse. Today, there are many online options for streamlining the poetry process. The Poem Generator allows you to select either "city" words or "sea" words; the Love Poetry Generator prompts you to input a fruit, a bird, a musical instrument, a flower, etc.

But Flarf is a bit different, in that you are not simply inputting words into an algorhythm or database; rather, the poet uses computer results as a jumping off point for creativity. As the article describes the evolution of Flarf, the poets began to discover that random Google searches often threw out odd juxtapositions and intriguing collages that revealed—at least to them—new poetic possibilities. The poems were so bad, they were good. A terrible beauty was born.

"I found the word flarf online on a police blotter where some stoner had described marijuana as flarfy," says Mr. Sullivan, who appropriated the term for the new poetic style.

A bit like visual collage, one of the works of art that the computer excels at:

"Flarf is a hip, digital reaction to the kind of boring, genteel poetry" popular with everyday readers, says Marjorie Perloff, a poetry critic and professor emeritus of English at Stanford University. "You used to find it only in alternative spaces, but it has now moved into the art mainstream."

Not only does it toss the prim poetry of the past overboard, the computer is the inspiration for creative work, the platform on which it's composed, and the primary way it's shared. The computer is the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end.