Brooklyn's Poet Laureate?

Brooklyn is a place I've grown to love, as my friends and family know by the fact that I won't stop talking about it on holidays away from it. (And by my incessant cries of "BROOKLYN" while punching people from other boroughs.) We've had our share of shitty times here, but it's kind of a great place, full of anachronisms and jutting, awkward juxtapositions. Within one mile radius of an area whose skyline constantly cracks open with ever-growing new condominium buildings, one may also find lower-lying gems like a typewriter repair shop, a tortilla factory, a community garden, Richie's Gym, a park, a performance space, a wine store, and a supermarket with the biggest baddest produce section ever. There's truly something for everyone, even here in teeny tiny North Brooklyn.

It's no surprise, then, that a lot of poets make their home here in the BK. Famous examples, of course, include Hart Crane and Walt Whitman; however, today's Brooklyn has a kick-ass literary scene that includes D. Nurkse, Matthea Harvey and other prizefighters. But who shall reign supreme over them all in the brightly lit ring of boro-poetixxx? Who shall Marty Markowitz anoint as the laureled knight of this vast and wondrous area? We-ell, Gersh Kuntzman at Brooklyn Paper gave us some ideas, recently -- and the audience (eh, the BP-reading audience anyway, let's be honest) sounded off faster than GG Allin could remove his clothes: nearly unanimously, they want Sharon Mesmer. Kinda awesome about that. What do you think? Is flarf a dirty word, anyway? Can we have this flarfist (who recently at least in part inspired some of the crazy fucking craziness all over the internet in response to Poetry Magazine's Flarf Issue) representing Brooklyn? Why, hell yes.


Gosh, she says "bitch" like fifty times in the first minute and a half, and that's alright in my book, which obviously is the most current and awesome of the books all over anywhere. Whatever, at least Brooklyn isn't the most repressed borough. (I'm looking at you, Mannyhat.)