IN DEFENSE OF THE SURF POETRY COLLABORATIVE

Though this may get me kicked out...

Surf

\Surf\, n. [Formerly spelled suffe, and probably the same word as E. sough.] The swell of the sea which breaks upon the shore, esp. upon a sloping beach.

Perhaps I'm way too postmodern for my own good, but in considering the notion of Aaron's project I reckon it primarily based on it's contextless title, e.g. "the sea which breaks upon the shore," the nature of the word "surf" itself, which is an onomatopoeia (1685, probably from earlier suffe (1599), of uncertain origin. Originally used in reference to the coast of India, hence perhaps of Indic origin. Or perhaps a phonetic respelling of sough, which meant "a rushing sound.") Insofar as an onomatopoeia is a word which has a sound which is "mimicing" another sound found in nature, it represents a certain kind of articifice. Similar to Aaron's notion that the work associated with the project is an attempt to somehow channel the properties of surf music (language-less sound) into poetry (language). Given that said project is generally concerned with artifice, I think it makes the question of whether any of us have ever "surfed" sort of moot. I disagree generally of the idea of "authenticity" in poetry, anyway, but that is overstepping my point here.

I think it's clear from the work on the site that the project is concerned with artifice. Err...Mick...Carr's poems create a sort of chimera-slang by mashing together referents and idioms. Thus:

catch 'em planning Haggerties for
the summer at Sunset Redondo

is charged with an informal diction that invokes a kind of intimacy. The speaker is making the assumtion that the listener can identify a "Haggertie" and "Sunset Redondo," but it is an empty intimacy given that what Mick is doing is largely language-based. He's faking an idiom, insofar as "Surf" music and "Surf" culture are idioms of a sort. The same kind of thing is going on with:

meta-tongs laze oriented
Kudos to this dynasty problem

King Hu "Haven't you seen La
Strada?" Identical twins are

spooky unaccountable wheezing

and

bolsheviki backboard
mugger wrist diavolo spree
musty lathe nodded kawasaki
dimmer totems guzzleboy

Catchwords, brand names, cultural references, etc. etc. parsed together non-narratively and therefore akin to music, especially surf music which invokes a sort of bombastic bravado and oversaturation.

What Christopher Rizzo is doing in his poem, "Mr. Eliminator" is similar:

Tip click tap flash to lip to
sources translate
refreshed and now
Just Do It fakie, 5-0 shark.

Christopher perhaps allows the wires pulling the puppet to be seen with:

pretty pretty icons O I
con you con we.

and

We con you con I O icons.

It's all a ruse, a stage set of sorts. Artificial in the way those surf movies of the 60's are artificial. Aaron's also alluding to this with his found "Flotsam" poem. Just as Hawaiin Vintage (?) chocolate has fuck all to do with surfing, and surf music is only connected to surfing by way of a certain sound-association, or context, or perhaps even just happenstance (Aaron is going to take issue with this), the poems themselves have only a dubious connection to "surfing," although that is the formal lens by which Aaron is approaching his editorial agenda, or governing principle by which the contributors decided to submit poems to Aaron for that purpose. In a way, it's marketing, so the poem culled from marketing exemplifies that.

The title of my own poem "Jenny Haniver" refers to a sort of chimera or jacakalope, a fake mermaid that sailors made by mutilating seaskate corpses. The poems in that project are love poems of a sort addressed to this "Jenny" who is an artificial creation. I like to think of it as the fake beach-blanket action which completes the "Beach Blanket Bingo" equation.

Obviosuly, Aaron has already spoken of his editorial agenda, but I wanted to offer my take on what I think is going on with the work there from a different perspective.

I gotta jet though, because Errant, Mick and Rizzo just tooled over and they're trying to give me a wedgie...