Found Poetry

 

By Rebecca Adams

Originally presented by Rebecca Adams at the 2014 ADDA Talent show in Orlando, FL, and now back by popular demand, Rebecca shares poetry that, apparently, she found just lying around!

Anyone can write “Found Poetry”.  It’s easy, fun, and a great creative outlet. Challenge your notions of creativity and give it a try!

A “Found Poem” is a poem composed from pre-existing words – selected, arranged into lines, edited, repeated, etc. by the “author.” You can do anything you want with the words (I like to include the source at the end of poem.) As a poet, I write found poems as “finger exercises.”

Your source can be literally anything: a book or article, an ad, the back of a cereal box, the telephone book (well, that might be sort of boring.) I’ve even written poetry using the tags on items I’ve bought and the copy on the back of paint chips. Simply find an interesting set of words, type or write them down, and experiment with breaking them into lines.  Move them around until you like what you have. Reciting the poem out loud will help you hear whether your creation sounds “poetic.’

Some tips:

• A poem does not have to rhyme, but it can. Repeated sounds count as “rhyme.”
• A poem usually relies on vivid images or metaphors and/or an interesting play with how words sound in combination.
• A poem is created by putting words together in a concise, memorable way that often includes rhythm or patterns.
• Anything goes. Use your imagination!

The Found Poem below was taken word for word from the results of a Google Web search. I decided to randomly Google my Myers-Briggs Personality (MBPI) Type along with a couple of my diagnoses to see what came up. This poem is the result I got, word for word! I noticed these words had story, rhythm, and humor and so I lifted them straight off the electronic page.  It’s my equivalent of the artist Marcel Duchamp famously putting a “frame” around an ordinary toilet and calling it art.

SUGGESTIONS (a found poem)

Your search –

entp

c-ptsd

adhd –

did not match any documents.

Any language

Any format

– Make sure all words are spelled correctly.

– Try different keywords.

– Try more general keywords.

– Try fewer keywords.

Advanced search tips:

Try again.

Unwanted words.

– Rebecca Adams (c. 2008)

 

In a former life Rebecca taught English at the University level while a graduate student doing her Ph.D in English. She is currently a poet, writer, Independent Scholar, and aspiring consultant, remaking her life after a long illness. Sari Solden’s book Women and ADD changed her life.