“Found Poetry”-

What is a Found Poem?

A found poem is another interesting poetic form that is quite popular. In this form, the poet usually picks few words or lines or paragraphs from numbers of different sources. These sources can be news article(s), book(s), poem(s), magazine(s), novel(s), social media and so on. You are allowed to add/delete words to these borrowed phrases to give them a different meaning and form a new poem of yours.

Found poetry is very effective for those who are having frequent writer’s block. They can get an opportunity to explore different sources and give a new dimension to their blocked thoughts. Again, such poems are much popular among beginners because with very little effort, they can compose a new poem of their own.

In my previous blog, I wrote about a specific patchworked poetic form that is cento. Cento poems are one kind of these found poems. But, the lines of cento poems must be borrowed from other poems, not from any other source. Besides this restriction, it has another restriction which is , you are not allowed to change (add or delete) the original lines and you can’t borrow more than 2 lines from one poem. If we compare cento with found poetry, then found poetry definitely gives you more liberty of borrowing phrases or lines from other sources.

There are three methods, that poets follow to write a found poem, those are:- blackout method, erasure method and cut-off method. (Detail explanation of these methods are out of scope of this blog. I will write separate blogs to explain these methods later)

How to write a Found Poem? -5 Easy Steps

1. Pick your sources: At first start selecting your sources from where you are going to borrow phrases or lines. If you are writing for the first time, then you should use 2–4 sources to collect your phrases. Later you can increase the number of sources to experiment with.

Definitely, you can choose your favorite poetic form(for the found poem you are going to write) whether it be a free verse or haiku or villanelle or something else. Found poetry doesn’t enforce any rhyming scheme or meter, so you have full liberty to choose the format according to your wish.

2. Carefully highlight phrases/lines from sources: Next what you have to do is, select and highlight all those lines those you want to pick. You can use the any of the three methods mentioned above (blackout, erasure, cut-off).

3. Form your New lines: After selecting all the lines that you want to insert in your new poem, you can add/delete/insert words of your choice within that selected phrases/lines. For example, if you want to give your poem the opposite theme of the original sources, then that is completely fine. You can explore your creative ideas without any barrier. Shuffling, rearranging and refrains everything goes fine with found poetry.

4. Take care of tenses and narrative voice: The most important thing while inserting lines from different sources is, you much insert lines with same tense and same narrative voice. Any mismatching will destroy the structure of your poem.

5. Cite your sources: The last thing you have to do while writing a found poem is, cite your sources properly at the bottom of your poem. Because as you have borrowed these phrases/lines, it’s mandatory to give the credit to the original authors. Otherwise, it will be considered as plagiarized content.

This is one of found poems written by me. I hope you guys will like it.

Yes, you are not broken

After falling down hard

You can evolve

Just like the beauty from the black

The breakers are coming

One after another

To break you down

Still, You have to keep moving

Believe in the guiding light

Keep faith alive in your heart

If You can’t change the direction of the wind

Choose to sail with that

Just like an oyster full of hope

You have to thrive and re-bloom

One day you heal

Other day you don’t

One day you are trying to fight hard

Other day people are trying to break you apart

It’s just okay, to not be okay

Because

Healing happens slowly in layers,

Not in a single day

I hope…

Someday you will heal and grow again

Someday, you will glance at yourself

And see the reflection of a better person

Words/Phrases/lines Borrowed from the below sources:

1. My Black Rose by Debilina Bhattacharya

2. Live in Now by Lenora McWhorter

3. Beating Hearts and Butterflies by Christine Evangelou

4. Healing happens in layers, hurting and healing | Moni by Moni Singh

Thanks for reading. Please drop your suggestions in the comment section.🙂