1. Found Poetry

2. 1. Search newspaper and magazine articles, editorials, textbooks, instruction manuals, catalogues, labels, personal and want ads, “notes left on paper bags”—any nonliterary source—for hidden poetic potential. 2. Lift and isolate at least three consecutive lines from the text and arrange to expose new meaning. 3. Keep the words in the same order. Do not add words to change the original material. 4. You may add a title and space and break lines and words any way you wish to create new meanings or sound effects. Search for hidden ironies, puns, and incongruities. The result may be serious, shocking, ironic, sarcastic, clever, or humorous. 5. After you have written your poem, write it on an overhead or a ditto master so that it may be duplicated for the class. Include a copy of the original source, including a complete citation. Have fun finding poetry in all the “wrong” places!

3. 1. Find any prose sentence or passage On a newspaper, magazine, catalogue, textbook, or advertising copy) that has poetic potential.
2. Copy it into lines of poetry, placing what you consider the most interesting words at the ends of lines to give them greatest emphasis.
3. Strip out unnecessary prosaic words.
4. Rearrange syntax, compress phrases, and repeat key words— anything but add words, the one rule in found poetry.
5. Repeat key words. Gather words to create a refrain.