Poetry Form: Found Poetry

A Found Poem, a Collage of Language: A found poem uses language discovered in a non-poetic context and turns it into poetry. Writing found poetry is like creating a collage of language, the way a visual artist might use scraps of paper, cloth, feathers, or other objects to produce something new and beautiful.

some potential sources: instruction books, recipes horoscopes, fortune cookies bulletin boards science, math, or social science textbooks dictionaries graffiti pieces of letters, post cards, phone messages, notes you've written for yourself grocery lists, lists of all kinds spam e-mails (Well, they've got to be good for something. But be careful not to click on any suspicious links!)

Rules for Found Poems: Keep track of where you get your words so you can give source credit. Forbidden sources: poetry, song lyrics, commercial advertising, and anything that is already “artistically arranged.” Otherwise, anything goes: magazines, books, assignments, textbooks, menus, notes, newspapers, historical plaques, obituaries, road signs, latrinalia, etc. Copy the language in the sequence that you found it. Double space between lines so it’s easy to work with.

Rules for Found Poems: Study the words you found. Cut out everything that’s dull, unnecessary, sounds bad, or is otherwise offensive. Adding your own words to the found words is “illegal” in this form and generally not tolerated in official Found Poem circles. A found poem is, after all, just that—found. However, for the sake of this class, if you need to add up to two words for the sake of clarity or meaning, you may add no more than two words. You may also make minor little changes, such as in tenses, possessives, plurals, punctuation, and capitalization.

found text poem cut from 1800′s romance novel

Assignment: Look for several sources that you might use for a found poem. Cut out the words OR take photos of them (this can be especially useful, if you wish to change the size). Look for photos, backgrounds, colors, etc. that can help add to the found poem Bring these to class tomorrow to create a found poem collage. If you wish to create a digital found poem, bring your photos on a flash drive or bring your camera AND cord for downloading.