Found Poems, according to a concise little definition from Poets.org, “take existing texts and refashion them reorder them, and present them as poems.” It’s a collage made out of words and phrases from textbooks, newspaper articles, home appliance manuals, encyclopedias, historical letters, legal documents, dictionaries, street signs, essays, plays. Anything with words can be a source; you can choose just one - for example, drawing from a single page or set of pages from a book - or you can draw from multiple sources. Found Poetry is to Blackout Poetry what a tree is to a branch; Blackout Poetry is one of many directions a creative author can go, when setting out to write a Found Poem (for more info on Blackout Poetry, read about it in its own “Written ActiviTeas” section). 

There are two basic methods to writing a found poem. Number one, the “strict” method, means that you write an entire poem consisting of words/phrases from pre-existing sources, which you as the author rearrange and combine in creative ways into something cohesive. Number two, the “skeleton” method, means creating a “skeleton” of a poem using pre-existing sources and then going in and incorporating your own words and ideas around it.

 

The first time I wrote a found poem, I ended up using a manual for a dryer and two scientific papers (one on the life cycle of aphids, the other on the migration patterns of bees in California) to write an imagined, satirical US Department of Agriculture bulletin with themes about womens’ rights, climate change, and environmental conservation. Yes, you read that right. It was exactly as ridiculous as it sounds, but the process was a heck-ton of fun. In the years since, I’ve written found poetry using a variety of sources, and playing around with the “strict” vs. “skeleton” formats. Click below to see my original draft (please judge with mercy) of the agriculture bulletin poem, as well as a later found poem called “Worm in a Radioactive Wasteland” I wrote using a biology textbook published in 1903. Note the differences in formatting, and that both are examples of “skeleton” found poems; the first uses many sources, while the second just uses one. 

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If you find yourself liking the idea of this whole ‘Found Poetry’ thing, check out the slides used in our club presentation about this topic to find further explanations and a step-by-step guide to writing your own found poem!