A Found Poem

When it comes to giving my students opportunities to write poetry, I try to give them rules and order. Not too many but just enough with the reason being that student poetry is usually a frantic mess. An excercise that was taught to me over twenty years ago that I now teach to kids is called A Found Poem.

A Found Poem involves using someone else's words to create something of your own. In the cae of my English classes we take words from the novels that we are reading. The rules are fairly simple:

• Turn to any random page of a novel that you are reading.
• Write a poem using only the words found on that page.
• You may not use words more than the number of times a word is found on a page. So, if the word "the" only appears on the page of the novel one time you can only use it in your poem one time.
• You may not alter the words you want to use in any way. This means no changing of verb tense or making something plural when it was singular. Words must be used the way they were found.
• Avoid using proper nouns.
• Do not lift clauses, phrases, or sentences from the page of the novel. This excercise involves using words on a page as they are written. The page is your word bank.
• Your poem must be a minimum of 10 lines.
• At least five words to a line.

Try this. Try this several times. It is challenging and fun. In time it gets a little less challenging. My students are usually amazed at what they come up with, especially because most of them have learned to hate and fear verse.

Note that I didn't mention rhyme or meter. Add those in when you are ready. Or don't. It's your poem.






Example: from page 83 of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

Stray Dogs

A family of stray dogs

at rest and then stalking

loose eggs where nothing is

but safe and old and curious

In the distance mad and fussing

I emerge to the door

Yonder taking my wild time

not patiently retired like a minute

Hot to play all this

in the kitchen I roared

I draw back ruinin nothing