With Style: Poetry - Monthly Poetry Style Challenges

Found Poetry By Gadralneure

Found Poetry Pt 1

Found poetry is created by using existing written sources; letters, newspaper articles, diaries, transcripts, interviews, advertisements, etc.

The poet selects these sources and edits them into a poem by gleaning phrases and providing a structure and punctuation to produce a work that conveys a deeper meaning hidden within the text. The completed piece is like a literary collage. Words, sentences, and paragraphs can be dropped to shape the poem and punctuations may be added, however no words are added, the poem is constructed from the actual text only. The resulting poem may be almost verbatim to the original document or a hundred words out of several thousand.

The source document can be from any time period, from very old to very recent. I prefer older sources, when letter writing was an art form in itself and the language was a bit archaic and Byzantine, but found poetry is limitless in its sources. It can be created from anything; Twitter feed, E-Mail, Trump campaign speeches. It is only limited by the poet's imagination.

These poems provide an insight into the human condition. The results can be humorous, sad, insightful, ironic, or even profound.

The following is an example of a found poem gleaned from a letter written to Charles Darwin. The original correspondence was 4 pages long.

Butterflies & Silverfish
A found poem (Letter from W.D. Fox to Charles Darwin, May 8th, 1874)

Butterflies and moths,
preserved in a book,
the great desire of his heart.
But alas!
The poor butterflies
lose a sad deal,
luster and beauty.

I have outlived almost all.
I have remembrances about me,
old-age encreeping upon me,
I had looked for its approval,
but it comes in leaps.
Does it not seem strange
how old we get?
Seems but a few years
since we were lads,
young and foolish.

How such a mind
could care for silverfish.
Do you remember Brachemis Crepitans
and our delight in finding it?
I have never seen it since,
until I saw death.
Those were the days I rejoice.

(note: this and other examples of Found Poetry may be found in my ongoing collection at https://my.w.tt/6GH5d3Maz4)

Found Poetry Pt2

As I mentioned in my last article on Found Poetry, the sources used to create the poetry are numerous. But it is not only the sources which are diverse, but the types of poetry that can be created as well.

By using  careful editing, the choice of which sentences to use, which words to omit, which punctuation to add, numerous poetic forms are available to the poet. Done properly you can create not only free verse, but rhymed poetry, and poetic forms such as haiku, Sanrio, Kennings, acrostic and many others.

Obviously not all original documents can be used to create the more complicated forms, since your choice of words, phrases, and sentences is limited in shorter sources. Creating the more complex forms generally requires longer original texts such as longer letters, speeches, trial transcripts, and historical accounts.

Below is an example of a haiku created from a front page story in a national newspaper.

Eruption, a haiku chain
Found poem (Front page, Chicago Daily News, May 9th, 1902)

Covered with ashes,
fire and smoke from volcanoes,
enveloped in dust.

Enveloped in dust,
impenetrable darkness,
not a soul was seen.

Not a soul was sewn
and no news had been received,
total destruction.

(The article used was about the eruption of Mt. Pelee in Martinique, resulting in over 30,000 deaths)

Found Poetry Pt. 3

In the previous two articles on Found Poetry, I mentioned the methods with which the found poem is created. I'd like this week to give some literary context to the found poem.

Found poetry has been included in the works of many well known poets. In his major work Cantos, Ezra Pound included many found pieces from documents, letters, and other sources. T.S. Eliot used found phrases in The Wasteland.

Other types of Found Poetry can also be seen. The writer William Burroughs, championed a form of found poetry called Cut-Out poetry, where phrases would be cut out of newspaper text and reassembled as poetry. Another version of this type of poetry is called Black-Out poetry, where text, generally in the newspaper, is blacked out and the remaining text is an artistic piece revealing found poems.

Found poetry in one form or another has been around for centuries. It is a valid reshaping of language that can have a profound impact on the reader. It is an experiment in creativity, an excellent way to stimulate the poetic self.

This week's example of a found poem is extracted from a lengthy account of the execution of Henry VIII's second wife Anne Boleyn. It distills the drama and poignancy of the act into a short and moving poem.

The Execution of Anne Boleyn
Found poem (excerpts from G. Burnet,The History of the Reformation, 1679)

Brought to the scaffold,
she made a short speech,
the last scene of this fatal tragedy.
She was come to die,
she would accuse none,
prayed for a gentle Prince,
a good and gentle sovereign Lord.

And so she took her leave,
her head cut off
by the Hangman of Calais,
expert at beheading.
Her eyes and lips,
observed to move,
her body thrown
into a common chest of Elme
and buried in the chappel.

Speak honourably of her,
she of all King Henries Wives
gained most from his esteem
and then outlived his love.

Found Poetry Pt. 4

In this final article on Found Poetry, I'd like to address one of the greatest strengths of this form. Honesty.

One of the great advantages of using things such as letters in creating poetry is that you have the advantage of someone's first hand experience and accounts to create an earnest and moving message. We are all limited in our experience, limited in the people we've known and the things we've seen. Found Poetry taps into the wellspring of other people's experience and allows us to shape our poems from the depths of their emotional experience.

Found Poetry is not just a creation of the poet composing it, it is often a monument to the individuals who first created the source text. We as poets, may recognize the beauty of their phrases or the depth of meaning therein contained, but it is their words that inspire us, their words that are the building block of our art.

My final example of a found poem is extracted from a letter written during the Civil War. It is from a son to his mother after a great and horrific battle.

Shiloh
Found poem (Letter from Corporal Frank Hughes to his mother after the battle of Shiloh, Camp Jackson, near Corinth, Miss, April 8th 1862)

The hard day is done.
We fired first some canister,
pushed forward in the wood.
I passed poor Jim,
his leg blown off by cannon shot,
him moaning loud.
The Sergeant pushed us forward,
ain't seen poor Jim no more.
Lieutenant Jacobus fell dead,
and Gunner Roesel killed.
The musket balls were flying
and I was scared, but no man fled.

It's quiet now,
the birds are gone,
the men sleep sound tonight.
Everyone has proved himself
manly and heroic,
and stamped upon its gallant sons
a passport to sure victory,
or an honorable death.