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03-26-2004, 02:04 AM
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Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Tulsa, Oklahoma
Posts: 555
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Found poetry- and is it really yours, even though you lineate or edit the original text you find? I found something on the NASA website that struck me, turned it into a poem, and emailed the two folks named as editors/writers.
Basically, they wrote it, but I saw soemthing else in it. How does one attribute a found poem, etc? Ethical issues, authorship issues, etc?
just for FYI, this is the original source:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040323.html
and this is what I did with it:
Magellan and Venus
(Found Poem from the NASA website)
The hot surface
of Venus shows clear signs
of lava flows. Evidence
of this was bolstered
by Magellan, who
orbited Venus
in the early 1990s.
Using imaging radar,
Magellan peered beneath
the thick, perpetual clouds
that covered her.
The hot, dense
climate makes Venus
a more difficult planet
for landing.
She currently
sparkles as the brightest
object in the western sky
after sunset.
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03-26-2004, 07:41 AM
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Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: San Antonio, TX, USA
Posts: 1,151
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I think you probably fulfilled any obligation you have by citing the NASA website. The rest is fair use.
I have a couple questions of my own: What is in your lineation that is not in the original text? What is the "something else" that makes this a poem and not relineated prose?
Bill
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03-26-2004, 08:32 AM
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Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: Covington, LA, USA
Posts: 80
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Found Poetry is currently a hot item and is being requested by a number of publications. I guess it became more popular after the Rumsfeld thing.
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03-26-2004, 08:58 AM
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Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Maryland, USA
Posts: 3,745
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Good question, Bill. Not that I know what I'm talking about when it comes to found poetry, but my answer would be that not everyone who read this passage in the original text would have recognized its potential as a poem - it's kind of like a little gold nugget hidden in the side of a mine. If this were a written poem, it wouldn't be as effective (for me anyway) - there's something sort of magical about knowing it was created by accident.
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03-26-2004, 08:59 AM
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Member
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Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Plum Island, MA; Santa Fe, NM
Posts: 11,168
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Leila -
I agree with Bill. The "something" you brought to the poem involved a bit of pruning and paraphrase - and lineation. That can be done with any textbook or encyclopedia or newspaper article, and if the base article has some essential interest - or better yet, hints of romance or mysticism - the result looks like poetry. But it is to poetry as a micro-waved Stouffers Special is to cooking.
Tim Murphy has written a number of "found" poems treating with his Dakota neighbors and surroundings, and centered on overheard dialogue (I think Tim has also used road signs). I've heard Tim read them (can't readily find any to post, unfortunately, but possibly Tim can help if he drops by and reads this thread) and thought most were wonderful - but Tim uses the "found" language as a starting point, and embeds it in language of his own creation - builds a poem around the "found" phrase, and in so doing elevates and displays the original language. That's poetry. What you are doing here is editing.
Michael Cantor
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03-26-2004, 09:18 AM
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Honorary Poet Lariat
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Join Date: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,008
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I thin Mike is right: the "poetry" part of "found poetry" is in what you do with it, but that doesn't necessarily involve language. Here's a passage from a union contract that I roared over and "edited" into a "found poem" (I hope)by means of punctuation:
DEATH BENEFIT
A person who dies
before becoming eligible for
retirement
is entitled to
the following benefits:
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03-26-2004, 10:19 AM
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Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: New York
Posts: 16,476
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That's great, Rhina. A poem ending in a colon!
I selected, strung together and gave an order to various signs in English that people on the internet have reported seeing in various countries, gave it a title of my own, and came up with a "found poem". I confess, I felt a little guilty calling it a poem of my own, but Light still took it:
GAINED IN TRANSLATION
a found poem
You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid.
Our wines leave you nothing to hope for.
Ladies are requested not to have children in the bar.
Would you like to ride on your own ass?
Please leave your values at the front desk.
Special cocktails for the ladies with nuts.
We take your bags and send them in all directions.
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03-26-2004, 10:27 AM
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Lariat Emeritus
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Fargo ND, USA
Posts: 13,816
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Outside the village of Cogswell was a sign saying "Welcome, home to 69 friendly people and one mean S.O.B."
That became:
Dakota Greeting
Frosted sign in a frozen ditch:
Stranger, welcome to Oakes,
home to hundreds of friendly folks
and one mean son-of-a-bitch.
The last couplet of the following was overheard in a bar:
The Honey Wagon
Some say the custom cutters wheeled
and dealed at his expense.
Some say the aphids ate his yield
and call it negligence.
Some of the neighbors’ lips are sealed,
but folks with common sense
say you can’t fertilize a field
by farting through the fence.
I'd say about one third of my poems are found, that is, I catch a fragment of memorable, metrical speech, which gives me the tune for a poem. Leila's poem may be found, but it ain't no poem.
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03-26-2004, 10:32 AM
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Member
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Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: belfast, northern ireland.
Posts: 2,348
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Leila,
Yes, Mike is right, and found items can make the basis of wonderful poems, but not, I think, whole poems.
It depends on what we mean by poem. In the sense that anything lineated is a poem, then any piece of prose, lineated deliberately, whether found or not, IS a poem.
Sometimes prose pieces can be found which fall or almost fall into meter, but even these are not "poems" in the highest sense. Here is a piece I found from, I think, Canon Law, which fell into IP lines with very small changes, but I wouldn't claim it is a poem.
The Stations of the Cross
If there are no Franciscan Fathers in
that place, then bishops who already have
obtained from the Holy See, the form that's known
as the Extraordinary of Form C
can delegate that any priest erect
the Stations and this delegation of
a certain priest to give the blessing must
be done in writing necessarily.
While pictures or tableaux are not required
(to the cross alone indulgence is attached)
these crosses must be made of wood and no
material of any other kind
will do. If only painted on the wall
erection is not only null but void.
Regards,
Oliver.
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03-26-2004, 12:16 PM
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Member
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Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Iowa City, IA, USA
Posts: 10,090
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This is the only found poem I have ever written. For my taste, a found poem often works best when there are ironic aspects to the original that allow it to be read in more than one way.
Susan
Guidelines for Romance--A Found Poem
--from the guidelines for Signet's
Scarlet Ribbons historical romances
The story is told in the third person,
largely from the heroine's point of view.
She should be young, the hero slightly older,
and, if not American, of a nationality
with which the reader can identify--
such as Scottish, English, or Irish. She should be
intelligent, strong-willed, and independent,
and should not sleep with numerous other men.
Rape of the heroine by the hero,
except in certain very special circumstances,
is to be avoided. No gang rapes.
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