“I like the idea of inspiration as regurgitated output. I’m stealing all these ideas from you, I hope you know, so don’t get mad when you see the regurgitated output … uh, I mean ‘inspiration’….” –“Poet” Sharon Mesmer in a Harriet interview with Edwin Torres. Torres prefaces his chat with Mesmer by claiming that her “poem” entitled “This Poem” “shows a fabulous breadth of poetics.” Since the “poem” is a flarf assemblage of stolen phrases, this is like praising a burglar’s storage unit for showing a fabulous breadth of commodities. The comparison of poetics and commodities is appropriate.Read More