National Blog Posting Month

Found Poems

I've started an Open University Poetry course recently. One of the forms we examine is the concept of the 'found' poem which is basically taking a piece of writing be it a magazine or newspaper article or advert and then scanning through the text and writing down single random words (i.e no phrases or whole sentences) that attract your attention and then use the words to write a poem. Here is my attempt at writing a 'found' poem:

Torture

Notorious soldiers wore
black uniforms; separated
fathers, mothers, children,
brothers and sisters. They
had no mercy.

Prisoners interrogated;
Bodies disappeared one
by one;

I
was
lucky :

I had no feelings.

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by polkadotwitch on November 1, 2007 at 4:21pm: i love found poems, and you have inspired me to add this to my nablopomo "read write poem" to do list!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by jillypoet on November 2, 2007 at 6:42pm: I always thought a found poem was using the words as is, just reorganizing the structure with line breaks, etc... The notion of taking words you like is interesting, as well. Annie Dillard has a book of found poems. I can't remember the title, I'll have to search for it. Cookbooks, old fashioned magazines, and how-to manuals are good places to gather interesting poems.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Thomas Adam on November 3, 2007 at 6:19am: I'm with jillypoet: I had heard found poems were taking an entire text, in order, perhaps embellished. This sounds like what Steve Kowit calla "cut-up," where perhaps disparate texts are taken and broken into phrases and the good phrases are used as a basis for a poem. He only provides one example: "Imagining Red" by Deborah Harding.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by January on November 3, 2007 at 7:53am: I've always known found poems as random bits of text and words that the writer puts together in a semi-meaningful way. I've written poems based on everything from news reports to personal ads, and consider them found poetry. I've also physically cut phrases out of magazines, placed them on the floor and put them together to see what order I can make out of disorder.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Whirling Dervish on November 11, 2007 at 8:57am: Clay,

What a great idea. I tried my hand this morning, for post #11. Not quite half way done! Here it is...

Stoney Moss; ▶ Reply to This