Found Poetry

Rethinking poetry as we know it.Found Poetry

What is Found Poetry? Found poems take existing texts and refashion them, reorder them, and present them as poems. The literary equivalent of a collage, found poetry is often made from newspaper articles, street signs, graffiti, speeches, letters, or even other poems.What is Found Poetry?A pure found poem consists exclusively of outside texts: the words of the poem remain as they were found, with few additions or omissions.Decisions of form, such as where to break a line, are left to the poet. Examples of found poems can be seen in the work of Blaise Cendrars, David Antin, andCharles Reznikoff.Blaise Cendrars

Charles ReznikoffAmelia was just fourteen and out of the orphan asylum; at her first job--in the bindery, and yes sir, yes ma'am, oh, so anxious to please.She stood at the table, her blond hair hanging about hershoulders, "knocking up" for Mary and Sadie, the stichers ("knocking up" is counting books and stacking them in piles to be taken away)The above poem was created with the words from law reports. He FOUND the words in outside texts Found poetry can also be blackout poetry

Assignment You will be given several pages of the novels that are being read in class. You will spend a day in class working on a Found Poem with the pages. You will have to utilize time of your own outside of class in order to complete the task.It will be displayed in class with your name in the back of your poem, so you can be anonymous if you so wish.