Poetry Focus: Found Poetry

If you are reading this post, I have a quick task for you! Compose a found poem and share it!

A what?

A found poem is a poem composed of passages you extract from outside texts - magazines, newspapers, cookbooks, speeches, journals, blogs, articles - any outside text. You can structure those passages into a form you choose, order the lines the way you want and break them where you like. I'd encourage you to not add words to the passages, though you may eliminate words as you see fit. That's it!

Try writing a 10-20 line found poem based on something you may have sitting around you or have access to - a blog, a website, an encyclopedia, a book, a magazine. Extract 10-20 lines or so from that text. Structure the passage that way you want. Break the lines where you want. And, if need be, remove some of the words to see what the passage can be altered to say. When done, SHARE!

If you don't have anything to extract from, let's try a speech from President Obama:

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less.

It has not been the path for the faint-hearted, for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame.

Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things -- some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor -- who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life. For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West, endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.

For us, they fought and died in places Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sanh.

Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.

This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions -- that time has surely passed.Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.

***Now let's see what you get! You may share your poem on this post here.. Remember, you have to be registered on the community to post!