I recently discovered found poetry and have been having fun with it ever since. Being a writer of short stories and creative nonfiction, (rather than poetry), I have been reluctant to post my attempts at poetry, even found poems. But today’s found poem, I believe, is interesting enough to share.
Horoscope for Leo: January 13, 2013
Be cautious,
emotions, perhaps coming from
another person or
event, oppose
your life
dreams and stifle any
imagination
you may have.
This can result in
an emotional
confrontation. You see
what’s wrong and
you know what
to do
now:
The time has come to
make it real,
and it’s a lot
bigger than any
one person.
Ambition, practicality, and
achievement are
admirable, but they
are means to
an end –
not ends
in themselves.
(Thankfully I only read horoscopes for fun, I don’t “believe” in them – if I did this one would scare me.)
Found poetry can originate from anything: ads, news articles, horoscopes (as I’ve done here), any group of words at all. The best part of the challenge, I believe, is that you aren’t allowed to change the wording, the grammar, the punctuation; therefore playing around with it teaches us to work with what we have.
Writing found poetry has not only helped me to relax it has also helped me to see my other work in a different light, and led me to improve that work (I hope). As I’m “rediscovering who I am”, I’m finding that I enjoy writing poetry more than I’d realized before. I’m considering studying poetry in an effort to slap some sort of format to these random words I’ve been slinging on the page. Hence, there’s a possibility you’ll soon find more poetry here at This Side….Over Yonder, (though I don’t promise “correct” formatting).
Have you written found poetry? What has been your best piece, (if available on the web we’d love for you to share the link). If you haven’t written found poetry I encourage you to try it. Check out this wonderful resource, Found Poetry Review ~ a plethora of found poetry.
Click here for fiction, and here for nonfiction.
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Deanna, I’ve never heard of ‘found poetry’, but it sounds like a lot of fun. I love what you did with the horoscope. It’s brilliant. Now I’ll be looking at every written word differently. 🙂
I did the same thing when I discovered found poetry Elizabeth. Almost everything I read I converted into a poem. It is fun but if I don’t stop myself I can misread the context of whatever it is I’m reading and have to start all over. 🙂