Creating found poetry means taking words, phrases and lines from other
sources and using them to create poems. I’d like to tell you about two types of
‘found poem’ I have been introduced and enjoyed.
1. Finding poems
in published prose
I first heard about this type of found poetry from Kirsty Stanley, who is an
occupational therapist and a writer. On her blog, Kirsty includes found poems
she crafted by photocopying a page of a book or magazine and creating a poem by
artistically highlighting selected words and phrases on the page. This is a fun
technique that can create something quite unexpected – for example a poem on a
topic that is different both from your usual poetry and from the source text.
For the poem I have included below (Stalled), I didn’t use quite the
method Kirsty describes on her blog – she creates a poem directly on the
photocopied page, whereas in my example I typed the words up and inserted line
breaks where I wanted them. However, like Kirsty, I didn’t add or change any
words or change their order.
The method I used was: (i) photocopy a page (two pages in this case)
from a book; (ii) select and highlight words, phrases and sentences to include;
(iii) type them up; (iv) insert line breaks; (v) fine tune, e.g., by adding or
removing words (ensuring that any words added are taken from the text and in
the original order).
I have scanned and highlighted the double-page spread from a (very good)
novella, A Penny Spitfire by Brindley
Hallam Dennis, published by Pewter
Rose Press, that I used to create the poem ‘Stalled’ (see below). I used
pages 82-83 (reproduced with permission).
If this type of found poem is new to you, my tip would be choose a page
with plenty of words and little or no dialogue. This is a technique to play
with – just have a go and see what you find.
Stalled (‘found’ in A Penny Spitfire by Brindley Hallam
Dennis)
His workshop
stood untouched,
encrusted with dirt
and cobwebs.
Spiders hunted in
threads of silk.
He’d changed.
Raw edges where his
life had torn,
had hardened.
Pain turned
to numbness.
She too changed,
The simplest things
divided them.
They began to live
as strangers.
He tried to remember
what they had before
but it seemed far away.
They had lost something,
did not mesh anymore.
They could not talk
about the past.
Yet he sensed
through words they could
come back together.
But how did you do that?
How tell the things
he wanted to tell?
Even thinking about them
made him shake inside.
2. Poems ‘found’
in conversations with others
On a Writing in Healthcare course at Ty
Newydd I learned about another kind of found poem from poet, tutor and
co-founder of Lapidus, Graham Hartill.
Graham told our group about found poems he has created from notes he made of
conversations with inmates when working as a poet in a prison. This technique
can be used or adapted to give someone who doesn’t consider themselves to be
very creative, or who does not or cannot write much, the experience of writing
a poem.
Here I describe using the technique to create a found poem about a child’s experience of World War II.
My mother was 10 when WWII began. To create a found poem based on her
memories I first interviewed her about the war. During the interview I made
rapid notes and also recorded the conversation. Later I typed up the main ideas
from her responses, sometimes but not always using her words. I played with the
order of the ideas until I felt I had them grouped and in a logical order. Then
I played with the lines themselves, editing and refining to turn whole sentences
into the lines of a poem that I hope has rhythm and flow. Finally I checked
back with Mum to see whether she was happy with my poem ‘Make do and mend’ (see
below).
Make do and mend
I was 10 when war started.
We kids didn’t hear much about the fighting. Just
what was on Pathé news at the pictures.
The man had a funny voice.
None of my family joined up.
Young men had a choice: go down the pit or go to war.
My Dad was a miner, and my brothers,
those that were old enough.
I remember seeing young men on the buses though,
off to start their training.
There was an army camp near us.
The soldiers unwound electric cable
right through the village. To untangle it.
Then they wound it up again.
Our Mary tripped over it, broke her leg.
She got fifty pounds.
Clothes were on ration.
Mostly it was make do and mend.
A lot of folk knitted. Pulled out old things
to knit new. Cut down women’s dresses
to make clothes for kids.
You had to queue to get stuff.
Me and Lil walked four miles to queue for a pork pie.
Dad grew vegetables. And mushrooms.
Mushrooms were dear then.
He dug a pond in the garden and kept ducks.
God they made a mess.
He raised cockerels for Christmas.
And in our stocking: an apple, an orange
and a few pennies.
We made cakes with powered egg.
Grated carrot in the Christmas pud
made the fruit go further.
Mam could make a meal out of anything,
a ham bone and a few peas.
You couldn’t get Christmas trees.
Me and our Jamie cut the top off a holly tree.
From up the top I could see a Lancaster
belly up in a field. Jamie wanted me to get down
so he could climb up and see. But I wouldn’t.
We crept along the hedges to get a better look,
snuck past the men in uniform,
the army and air force police.
One night the Germans dropped incendiaries.
Mam made us hide on a mattress under the stairs,
me, Jamie and Lil, while she stood at the door
watching planes trying to bomb the mines.
They missed. And me and Jamie crept
under the kitchen table while Mam wasn’t looking
and pinched some raisins.
Get writing – play, have fun, enjoy!
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Writing for Wellbeing edited by Carol Ross is available through the Poetry Space Online Bookshop
If the above has inspired you then why not send your entry in to Poetry Space Competition 2013
Poems on any theme are eligible to enter. They must be previously unpublished and up to 40 lines maximum.
