Found Poems: Creative Ways to Arrange Words

In Language Arts class, the subject of poetry is often greeted with a collective groan, particularly from middle school students. Poetry, they may say, is too difficult, hard to understand, or just stupid. The found poem is an easy and fun way to introduce poetry writing, and persuade reluctant writers to try it.

Found poems are written by taking words or phrases from a prose text and rearranging them in the form of a poem. The instructions for creating a found poem are simple. Students skim through the text, such as a chapter from the novel they are reading in class, and choose words or short phrases that they find especially interesting or appealing. Once they have selected 20 or 30 phrases, they eliminate the ones that don't fit into their poem. Then they arrange the words or phrases to form a cohesive poem that flows, holds together, and makes sense.

While the word order of phrases should ideally be left intact, words may be deleted if necessary. Punctuation, tenses, plurals or possessives can be altered, and changing or adding an extra word or two of their own is allowed only if absolutely necessary to help the poem flow or make sense.

The topic of the poem can be assigned, or the students can be allowed complete freedom to create a poem on the topic of their choice. The topic of the poem doesn't need to relate to the story of the novel from which the phrases were taken.

Even unenthusiastic eighth graders are enchanted by this project, perhaps because they can take something from a book that they may not even particularly like, and transform it into something all their own. The results may be surreal, haunting, very funny, and often stunningly original. Once they get the hang of it, students sometimes enjoy writing found poems so much that they want to write more of them. If this is the case, found poems can be assigned for extra credit when students finish a chapter in the book.

Here is an example of a found poem created from phrases taken from chapter 13 of Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte:

On the verge of madness
I had sought shelter in a ruined castle
A place of refuge

Where must I turn for comfort?
An unnatural realm
Conjuring up its apparition

His eyes, all their beauty annihilated
All the light, tarnish and dust
A mere ruin of humanity
Not all the angels in heaven shall save him

Openly I grieved, sighing and weeping
Any relic of the dead, saved from the grave, is precious
I cherished the hope
Of slumber deep and sweet

References:

Personal experience

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5780

http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=33