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Jackson Pollock
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National Novel Writing Month, 2007
call for submissions
• Third Person Press •
what: Undercurrents Anthology
speculative fiction/poetry
who: Cape Breton Island writers
when: deadline March 15, 2008
how: click for detailed guidelines -
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Apr
12
Found Poetry, a primer
April 12, 2007 |
[-poetry, how-to-]
by Nancy Waldman
detail, Genji Scroll, Goto Museum, Tokyo, Japan |
I recently returned from a Writing Retreat planned and presented by the members of my local writing group. One of our participants, Krista MacKeigan taught a wonderful workshop on poetry and inspired me to try some found poetry.
I chose the words for my poem from The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, translated by Ivan Morris.
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outstandingly splendid things It was really splendid. I felt sorry I was disappointed, however; They made a most elegant picture as they But |
The process is, on the surface, simple.
Find a piece of prose and turn it into a poem. Use every word as it is found in the original. Krista suggested first trying non-fiction rather than novels or short stories. Newspapers, she found, were generally lacking in enough figurative language to make it interesting.
My suggestion is to choose a piece of non-fiction prose not for its subject, but instead for the language and imagery. Find words that interest you about a subject that you wouldn’t ordinarily write about.
Remember it is ‘found’ art, so don’t agonize over this part of the process. Play with it. Choose *lightly* and see what develops. In that way, you can be surprised by the results.
I found that this kind of exercise was instructive in the areas of line breaks and overall pacing of the poem. Because I was using “ready-made” words it took away that pressure of choosing the right ones and allowed me to focus on other parts of the process. This is very much like learning about composition by using magazine scraps for collage or even painting by numbers or tracing which –while perhaps not an artistic goal–can be instructive about how artists achieve certain effects.
Once you have done several, choose one to take a little farther by rearranging, removing and adding words. You can also experiment with doing a Parallel Poem.
Parallel Poems are derivations of existing poems rather than prose. The result is a poem very like another the original but using slightly different words, images or subject matter. See below for links to some examples of parallel poems. Use can one of your found poems, or take a poem you admire and make it your own while always, of course, giving credit to the original poet for his or her work.
Other online links:
- Parallel Poetry Workshop
- Found Parallel Poems
- an online word rearranger
- See another PCQ Found Poetry article
- Our Poetry links
about The Pillow Book:
Sei Shonagon was born in approximately 965 and served as lady-in-waiting at the Court of the Japanese Empress during the last decade of the tenth century. The Pillow Book was a kind of diary or journal, though whether only for herself or written for a contemporary or future audience, no one knows.
Here is another Found Poem from the same source:
30. Insects
The bell insect
and the pine cricket
the grasshopper
and the common cricket
the butterfly
and the shrimp insect;
the mayfly
and the firefly.
I feel sorry for
the basket worm.
He was begotten
by a demon,
and his mother,
fearing
that he would
grow up with his
father’s frightening
nature,
abandoned the
unsuspecting child,
having first wrapped him
in a dirty piece of clothing.
“Wait for me,” she said as she left.
“I shall return to you as soon
as the autumn winds blow.” So when
autumn comes
and the wind
starts blowing,
the wretched child hears it
and desperately cries,
“Milk! Milk!”
The clear-toned cicada
The snap beetle also
impresses me.
They say the reason it bows
while crawling on the ground
is that the faith of
Buddha
has sprung up in its
insect heart.
Sometimes one suddenly sees the
snap beetle
tapping away
in a dark place
and this
is rather
pleasant.
The fly
should have been included
on my list of hateful things
for such an odious creature
does not belong with ordinary
insects.
It settles on everything
and even alights
on one’s face
with its clammy
feet.
I am sorry
anyone
should have been named
after it.
The tiger-moth
is very pretty
and delightful.
When one sits
close to a lamp
reading a story,
a tiger moth
will often flutter
prettily
in front of one’s book.
The ant
is an ugly insect;
but it is
light on its feet
and I enjoy watching it
as it skims
quickly
over the surface
of the water.
Originally published in the April 2006 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: alterations; edited for re-publication
also posted in: Poetry - process, types, tutorials , Poetry , Writing - technique, craft, tips , The Original PCQ, 05-06 , Creations , Craft
tags: create, creative, found, how-to, images, inspire, poetry, primer, process, The Pillow Book, way, work, workshop, write, writing
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