Poetry Friday: Found Poetry

I’m a little late getting my Poetry Friday post up but it’s still Friday and I had a lot of fun putting this together.

This week, I played around with some ideas for found poems. From what I understand, a found poem is one created out of words and phrases that are pulled from another work. The words and phrases are then placed together to create something entirely new and unique. 

A poem can be ‘found’ in a speech, a song, a letter, a manual, an advertisement, a newspaper article, or in any written text. 

Here is a found poem I created out of a rejection letter.

April

thank you for

green

we do hope

and continue to search               

thank you again for

green

we do wish

And here is a found poem I created from an acceptance letter.

consulted for his wisdom

look forward

we will run around the world

cut and paste

an ancient language,

tongue twisters,

limericks and haiku

if you find

a convoluted path

don’t worry

make the poems

your own

Here’s a found poem I created out of some album titles.

This Women’s Work                     

After the Gold Rush                         

Ladies of the Canyon                              

Shine a Light

I Can See Clearly Now 

Little Earthquakes

Revival

I’m a Mountain

Diamonds on the Inside

In the order they appear above, the albums are works by Kate Bush, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, The Rolling Stones, Johnny Nash, Tori Amos, Gillian Welch, Sarah Harmer, Ben Harper.

Here’s a poem I found at the grocery store.

Dad’s

Goldfish

Enjoy Life

Here’s a poem I found at the library.

If you've worked on found poetry, I'd love to hear about it.