Flarf is Nonceptualism vs. a Conceptual's Poetics = LangPo's Bastards Hit Puberty

In what I would have considered an unlikely turn of events, a online debate (or simply sometimes militant compare and contrast session) between Flarf and Conceptual Poetry is underway. Thus far, I would have to say that the debate is less about the differences between the two practices, and more about the differences between the practicioners, though perhaps the line is thin. Occasionally, a third, fourth, or fifth party weighs in... most often to object to the existence of the debate, with some even seeming to prefer that neither practice existed at all.

I disliked these 3rd party reminders from the outside world, these supposedly impending contingencies. They impose without any alternative implications. It would seem an increasingly common reaction toward many poet's/artist's frustrations with such specific debates. It's not that what they say isn't true, but that its relevance is superficial: there are omitted, ignored and rejected factors in every debate, as a debate is defined by the examination of a confrontation taking place along specific boundaries of certain entities.

Highlights:
Flarf is Projective Verse. Conceptual Poetry is the New York School. - Ron Silliman

Conceptual Poetry is the new Language Poetry. Flarf is the new New York School. -Andy Dander

Conceptual poetry
is like saying

'hot heat'

flarf is more like
constructing the sound
of a human sneeze
out of dog barks. -Phaneronoemikon

CON POET POWER! -Nicholas Manning

From now on the collective formerly known as Flarf will be known as the Nonceptualists. - K. Silem Mohammad

Nonceptualist Manifesto Part I -K. Silem Mohammad

new movements like Conceptual Writing or Flarf are the correct responses for our time. If writing is not taking these new conditions into its poetics, it simply cannot be considered contemporary. -Kenneth Goldsmith

Now Even More!:

I don't much give a damn whether Flarf or contemporary "Conceptual Poetry" correspond to the poetics of two generations back or not. Kind of a dull question, in my view. -Curtis Faville

We do not have a few vocal male figures to name us something, to decide who's in and who's out of the group, to allow some to talk and others to be silenced. -Erika Staiti

Are these really the kinds of fruitless (and suffocatingly ameri-centric) mappings you want us to engage in? -Brent Cunningham (to Ron Silliman)

Poetry is divided into:
(a) belonging to the emperor,
(b) embalmed,
(c) tame, 
(d) sucking pigs, 
(e) sirens,
(f) fabulous, 
(g) the sounds of human sneezes constructed out of the barks of stray dogs,
(h) included in the present classification,
(i) frenzied, 
(j) innumerable,
(k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush,
(l) et cetera, 
(m) having just broken the water pitcher,
(n) that from along way off look like flies on shit,
(o) those brands owned by the corporations Monsanto, Kraft Foods (i.e., Post Alpha-Bits), Dole, Tyson Foods, Nestle, Sysco, DuPont, Archer Daniels Midland, Sunkist, Chiquita, Kellogg's, Unilever, and The News Corporation.

- Angela G.

UPDATE EDIT:

OFFICIAL(esque):

Having some unseen impulse, Kasey Mohammad once again repositions the poetry formerly known as Flarf. Read the revisions: Nonceptualists Now Transceptualists. Related fields being Misceptualism/ Unceptualism/ Noceptualism/ Someceptualism/ Windsweptualism/ & Flarfing as a product of a Poetic('s) Disorder [to promote word loss].