1. Found Poem
1. Carefully reread Excerpt 2 and look for 10–20 words or phrases that stand out about living and working conditions for slaves on plantations.
Highlight or underline details, words, and phrases that you find particularly powerful, moving, or interesting.

2. Found Poem
2. On a separate sheet of paper, make a list of the details, words, and phrases you underlined, keeping them in the order in which you found them.

3. Found Poem
3. Look back over your list and cut out everything that is dull or unnecessary or that just doesn’t seem right for a poem about what life was like for slaves on plantations.
Your whole poem should be fewer than 30 words.

4. Found Poem
4. When you’re close to an edited version, if you absolutely need to add a word or two to make the poem flow more smoothly, to make sense, to make a point, you may add up to two words of your own.
That’s two and only two!

5. Found Poem
5. Arrange the words so that they make a rhythm you like. You can space words out so that they are all alone or all run together. You can also put key words on lines by themselves.

6. Found Poem
6. Choose a title.

7. Poetry Form: Found Poetry

8. 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.

9. 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 s (Well, they've got to be good for something. But be careful not to click on any suspicious links!)

10. 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.

11. 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.

15. found text poem cut from 1800′s romance novel

19. 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.

20. excerpt 1 Mother in the night
Mother She journeyed to see me in the night Lying beside me Never by the light of day Whipping—the penalty But worse yet, Even in death, She was a stranger to me.

21. excerpt 1 Mother in the night
Mother She journeyed to see me in the night Lying beside me Never by the light of day
Whipping—the penalty But worse yet, Even in death, She was a stranger to me.

22. excerpt 1 Mother in the night
Mother She journeyed to see me in the night Lying beside me Never by the light of day Whipping—the penalty But worse yet, Even in death, She was a stranger to me.