Twisted
 

If a poet’s work is to take reality and filter it so that it becomes poetry, then “found” poetry is the fast food of poetry.

I came across this on social media this morning. All I did was reformat it and add a bit to the end.

The challenge is: post a piece of poetry you "found" today...

Here is what I found:

Twisted Logic
xxxx
All lies and jests
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-Paul Simon

He didn’t say that
and if he did he didn’t
mean that
and if he did you didn’t
understand it
and if you did it’s not
a big deal
and if it is
others have said
worse.

Glamorous narcissist.
Cult captcha.
Lie lie lie
lie lie lie lie lie lie lie
lie lie lie
lie lie lie lie lie lie lie lie lie lie lie.

------------------------

Hi Jim,

I like your poetic response to the Simon quote, but it’s not actually a found poem. Here is a link to what Wikipedia says about found poetry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Found_poetry

And here is an article from The Found Poetry Review

http://www.foundpoetryreview.com/about-found-poetry/

Poets employ a variety of techniques to create found poetry. Common forms and practices include:

Erasure: Poets take an existing source (usually limited to one or a few pages) and erase the majority of the text, leaving behind select words and phrases that, when read in order, compose the poem. Examples include Tom Phillips’ A Humument, Jen Bervin’s Nets and Austin Kleon’s newspaper blackouts, just to name a few.

Free-form excerpting and remixing: Poets excerpt words and phrases from their source text(s) and rearrange them in any manner they choose

Cento: Poets unite lines from other authors’ writings into a new poem. The original lines remain intact; the main intervention comes in arrangement and form. Read more about centos.

Cut-up: Poets physically cut or tear up a text into words and phrases, then create a poem by rearranging those strips. Arrangement may be intentional or haphazard. Read more about the cut-up method of composition.

Jim,

You didn’t understand.
When a man hears fast food

and disregards the rest,
all is poetry.

Tear up Wikipedia,
physically cut up poets,

reformat the morning,
add a newspaper

but remain intact
to the end.

Paul Simon becomes
a new poem.

(cut up from the first two posts)

Matt

I once published a "found" poem in Light. I felt guilty since the only thing I wrote was the title, but it was fully disclosed to John Mella and he didn't mind:


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.

(Back later)

That's intriguing. How and where did you find it Roger? In one piece? A selection of joke signs? As is, or did you rearrange words?

Matt

Erasure Poem from Words of the First Three Posts

Reality came across and didn’t mean
to create blackouts free from their source.

Unite original or intentional or haphazard
method(s) you didn’t understand.

Disregard the rest
all the morning.

I have the same questions. I'm intrigued.

It's so long ago I can't remember exactly, but there are tons of comical mistranslations on the internet and I seem to recall that I picked and chose my favorites and chose the sequence. I also recall that I wanted to include a brief note explaining that these were lines gathered off the internet, but the editor chose to omit the note and simply leave the words "found poem" as the only disclaimer. In retrospect, I wish the note had appeared.

Martin: "I like your poetic response to the Simon quote, but it’s not actually a found poem."


So does it have to be a collage of words pieced together from at least two different sources? (like Roger's and Matt's?) Or can it be created from a single source/paragraph of text?

If I'm wrong about this being found poetry (see link below) at least I serendipitously contributed to Matt's off-the-cuff found poem response : )

You could be misunderstanding this as being my own written poetic response to the Paul Simon epigraph. In fact, it is not. The body of the poem (except for the final stanza) is text I found on social media (FB). All I did was reformat it to give it the “poetry” look and, of course, to place added emphasis where I thought I could with line breaks.

I only added the Simon epigraph after writing the final stanza and noticing that when I read aloud "Lie. Lier. Lie." it sounded like the refrain from Simon's The Boxer.

The "found" text was found here.

Found poetry, as defined by Poets.org, is:

A pure found poem consists exclusively of outside texts: the words of the poem remain as they were found, with few additions or omissions. Decisions of form, such as where to break a line, are left to the poet.

Unless by "outside texts" it means more than one text source needs to be used in order to create a kind of word "collage" pulling from multiple sources, then I think mine is a found poem.

This could be a learning moment for me. One of many I've had here on the Sphere : )
x

xOK, back to say that I'm wrong. Found poetry is, in a sense, cherry-picked from a larger body of text. Word collage. Yes? Now I know (should've known before posting).
x

Jim,

If you got your words from other texts without adding anything of your own, then it’s a found poem. I listed three definitions of found poetry in Post #2. I suppose you read it. It’s from The Found Poetry Review.

I was obviously mistaken about saying your poem is not a found poem. (Incidentally, the link you supplied didn’t work. There was nothing there.) But you said you got all the words form Facebook, which tells me yours is a found poem. So, again, I apologize for assuming you wrote the poem yourself based on the Simon epigraph. I misunderstood your method. I suppose it was because you didn’t reference the original source.

Just happened to poke my nose in here and I laughed hard at Rogerbob's poem (post #4).

Thanks for the laugh, Rogerbob -- it felt great!

Yes I did read your three definitions of found poetry from found poetry.org. That gave me pause, since what I had done to create mine did not neatly fit into any of the three, IMO.

Here is another link to the text I used for the found poem. Hope it opens up for you.

I said in my preface that, “I came across this on social media this morning. All I did was reformat it and add a bit to the end.” but didn’t provide a link to the source. Maybe that is where the confusion lay…

To be clear, the first stanza (italicized) is found poetry. The second stanza is what I added to it. The epigraph came only after, when I was reading it aloud and noticed the happy coincidence that it sounded like the refrain from Paul Simon’s The Boxer. When I took a look at the song lyrics I thought it was appropriate to include an excerpt as an epigraph.

Anyway, there are days when I feel I'm knee-deep in found poetry and so thought it would be interesting to hear quick bits of found poetry by others right on the spot. Just pick up a newspaper, magazine, website and there it is : )
x

PS: I take back my apology in post #11 : )
x

No, no, no! Most of you guys have it all wrong. Found poetry isn't about the poetry. It's about defining the precise definition of found poetry, with extra points for publishing an article about it, and extra-extra points for developing a doctoral program in found poetry and finding someone to fund it. You're not supposed to enjoy or admire the stuff - you just study it. People like Roger and Michael Ferris will be the death of found poetry.

Jim, I'm sure you didn't find "lier" [sic].

Julie,

I intentionally nested the word "lier" in the 2nd stanza (2x), which is the stanza that I wrote -- it's not part of the "found" text I used in the first stanza.

It is, of course, a found poem about Trump. Hence, the word "lier".

But I'm still unsure if it is indeed a found poem the way I composed it. Can someone confirm one way or another?
x

I think what Julie was referring to, Jim, was that “lier” is supposed to be “liar.”

In regards to whether or not your poem is a “found poem,” well, the first stanza is, but, since you invented the second stanza, that part is not "found" (as far as I know). So it’s a combination of found and composed.

Omg!!!!!i missed that! I’ve edited it out of the poem. The correct spelling doesn’t jive with the look of the repeated “lie”.

An American friend was throwing out a lot of stuff and gave me a memorial edition of a glossy magazine. It commemorated the disaster and heroism of "nine-eleven". All the editorial content was created accordingly but the advertisements, placed and paid-for, remained exactly where they were. I tried to make a poem from what I found but thought it more to the sick and sorry point that they should all stay as I found them. Is this a Found Poem?

Facing Pages.

September 24th 2001

Commemorative Editorial. The Day that Shook America.
Advertising copy, bought, placed and paid-for.

Front cover. Yellow, black, Flight 175. South Tower. Smoke.
Inside front cover, the more you know about your health, the healthier you’ll be.
Page one. Silver, blue. Twin towers. Liberty.
One-through-twenty. Faces weeping, blood, fear. Sheer human effort.
26. Collapse of South Tower...
27. Bra. Playtex. 18-hour sensation. Supports your sides like never before.
30. Sobbing survivors...
31. He knows just how to give me goose bumps. Diet Coke.
32. Named man kneeling, aghast...
33. We were there when you were a child of the 60’s. State Farm. There for life.
36. Firefighters, heroes, grief...
37. Wherehouse DVD. Schwarzenegger. Last Action Hero.
42. Women covered in dust, running, each holding a terrified child...
43. Why just wash away the day when you can wash away the years? Olay.
45. “Welcome to Manhattan”, running, running, running over Brooklyn Bridge...
46. Lipstick. Lipgloss. Twin products standing tall. Side by side. Cover Girl. Wow!
56. Pentagon employees carry the injured across the street...
57. I didn’t know acid reflux could wear away the lining of my esophagus. Nexium.
64. Bush returns to the capital. “Terrorism against our nation will not stand”...
65. It’s a day to giggle. And a day for Hormel Pepperoni.

Last page. A Banner Yet Waves. Rescue workers hoist the stars and stripes “In an echo of Iwo Jima".
Inside back over. More powerful than ever. Toyota Camry. Get the Feeling.

.

Ann, Yes, I think it is. And a good one. A profound one, in my eyes. What makes found poetry art is how well the poet holds up what he/she has found to catch the light just right. What I see is an ugly two-headed creature: the terrorist and the capitalist. It is like a punch in the gut.

Some other thoughts...

• The page notations anchor this nicely.
• The juxtaposition of the facing pages is fascinating and is what makes this piece so compelling. These two lines/facing pages are incredible:

xxxxxxx42. Women covered in dust, running, each holding a terrified child...
xxxxxxx43. Why just wash away the day when you can wash away the years? Olay.

• I think it also flirts with being an ekphrastic. The italicized parts are “found” and the unitalicised parts are shades of an ekphrastic description. (Although I shudder to think that I'm wrong about what is both "found poetry" and "ekphrastic poetry" : )
• What gives this it’s punch, I think, is that it is an excellent retrospective snapshot of things that captures the unexpected. Like a photograph taken when no one knew the camera was pointing at them that reveals something no one thought was there.

I had hoped for more response to this thread for exactly the reason this found poem of yours demonstrates. It got off to a rough start with the misunderstanding I guess and everyone walked away… thanks for walking back : )
x

Maybe a lost and found poem--

FARKLEBERRY FOUND
—found poem from Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary

You can't miss the
farkleberry.
It's right up there
on page 416—
the first entry—
a shrub or small tree
of the heath family
of the southeastern
United States
having a black berry
with stony seeds.

I'm no expert (ha), but I don't think this is found poetry, Edmund. I don't want to venture to say why exactly because I'm a little hesitant to put my foot in my mouth again : )

I don't think it is for the same reason I don't think mine is if we are using this definition:

A pure found poem consists exclusively of outside texts: the words of the poem remain as they were found, with few additions or omissions. Decisions of form, such as where to break a line, are left to the poet.

Matt's #3, Roger's #4 and Martin's #7 are pure found poetry.

But yours seems to be more like quoting the dictionary. At the very least I would put lines 6-11 in italics.

Of course, if Michael Cantor is saying "damn the definitions" and that found poetry is kind of like haiku poetry in the sense that there are many adaptations to the form that are acceptable, well.................................. I'm lost.
x
x

Well, Jim, to quote our go-to Cantor again, damn the definitions. You say it's a quotation from a dictionary. Well, hell, that's what found poetry is, at least what I've seen, quotations. You find something, take it out of context, and it reads like, or is, poetry.

I shouldn't have added the explication to the poem so let's just call it a lost poem, one of my many.

Lost poems. Now that to me sounds more interesting than found poems.

Cheers,
John

Indeed, John. Here are a few lines on the subject from a rather pretentious glosa I wrote. It is of some concern to me that the poet publishing a "true" (by Jim's definition) "found" poem should acknowledge the lostness of the words and the luck of the foundness.

Found poems are a labour-saving caper
(Best to ignore the fact that someone lost them).
A painless, mindless way of filling paper.
Old boundaries collapse after you’ve crossed them.
The laundry list, the memo, the prescription;
It’s written – rip it off and put it in!
The condom packet and the job description…
Art is a buffet lunch - sod discipline;
Love bids you welcome. Blunder through and grab
What turns you on. But pick up your own tab.

(The [last half of the] last line was, of course, determined by the cabeza, but I was delighted by the way it underlined my point and chose to overlook the fact that the glosa is, itself, one of the earliest instances of "found poetry". Innit.)

Ann, this "lost and found" poem of yours is the true definition.
x

Hi Ann,

Stopping by to say I like your poem very much.

Cheers,
John

I think Plato would have been cozy with the thought that poets dip into The Well of Lost Poems by remembering them. I fear to imagine what the true Ideal Forms are of the stuff in the neighboring “Exquisite” threads. I and my wife went to a meeting of Andrei Codrescu and his crew of synchronized foot scrubbers two or three years back (maybe four), and were appalled by his rudeness to outsiders.

Never dare a fool...
 

I removed this to work on it a bit more. I'll repost it later.

Cut-up of the Exquisite Corpse 2 poem, lightly edited: punctuation, cut some the's, changed some tenses, combined some prepositions when the were next to each other, or when another one would make some sense--I let the original stand unless I couldn't even get a surreal meaning. Changed the "a" in "clatter" to a "u" because of the phrase the cut up generated. Cut about 2 phrases the cut up generated that I couldn't make fit naturally. I left it in the order it gave me.

Cut Up

The grave for Possibly: corpses, possibly
that jeune Jeanne Lucasia.

Look the other mute with all didn’t find me,
mucking about in his own autoclave.

The laureate reformats the shards.
Sirens suddenly go looking for my mind—

the indifferent way the sidewalk in Patmos
passed away in peace…

You didn't understand above the root.
I crawled into the microwave.

Clutters and white divans with lay
upon a round in sunlight,

it shatters beside the carry-on.
So heaves and cracks of lab glass somehow try to.

You do Chardonnay, Overnight Caller,
except perhaps for dark? The hooting dark.

To each of the cosmic hallmarks strewn across
the here-we-are. He smokes. And her eye? What?

I have to say I quite like some of this.

Never mind, eh...

FOUND POEM

nevermind

What is and is not found poetry gets dubiouser and dubiouser with every post.
x

Another dubious one--

Answers to a game I found in a newspaper insert. Just added some spacing. It was titled "The Middle Son."

The Middle Son

Poi son ous
Ar son ist
Pri son er.
Super son ic
Per son able
Rea son able
Re son ant
Per son ality.

Nice one, Conti. Also Slater’s, which I remember from the solid-state “Light”. Laughed then, laughed now. << {In all capital letters.}

[Deleted -- I'm losing it -- See #39 below]

FOUND

... Found ... poetry is a type of poetry
... created by taking words,
phrases, and ... sometimes
... ... whole passages from other
sources and reframing them
as poetry ... (a literary equivalent
of a collage) by making
changes in... spacing and lines,
or by adding or ... deleting text,
thus... imparting new meaning.
... The resulting ... poem can be
defined as either treated:
... ... changed in a profound and
systematic ... manner; or untreated:
virtually ... unchanged from the order, syn-
tax and meaning of ... the poem.

x
I found this in the current edition of the New Yorker magazine, which I read primarily for the cartoons:

(Only the title is mine)

Witches' Stew

We stir the brew all morning
Marissa comes in whenever
stirs the brew for an hour
takes a smoke break
goes on her phone
we stir the brew
do some chanting
the sun comes up
whatever
we’re still stirring
Marissa’s on her phone again
and I’m
Like
“Seriously, Marissa?”

x
x

x
Hey R/B, just found your found poem. Dictionaries are the plain-spoken poetry of the written word : )
x