Today, in a statement on the SUNY/Buff poetics list, K. Silem Mohammed puts his recent BBC interview on Flarf in perspective. He is at pains to tell us the interview was brief, that he read a few lines of a poem, only to go on to explain to the interviewer that Flarf consists of intentionally bad poetry, throwing the interviewer onto a (stock) "flabbergasted" question: But Is It Art?. (Kasey said yes).In a funny aside, Kasey reveals that the most charming thing about the interview was the interviewer's pronunciation of the word "Flarf" (appparently in a brogue). I loved this statement of Kasey's because of what it says, first, about his legendary kindness (he introduces his discussion of the interview wth the phrase "lest anyone build it up too much"), and second, related, what it might imply about the meaning of that so-hard-to-pin down term , the "New Brutalism" (perhaps the only possible way [highly ironicized] of putting out a subliminal call for caring and kindness while still retaining some modicum of imperative brattiness?)

So, get to know some New Brutalists, and the work, and see for yourself...