[This article appeared in slightly different form in 2014 — ed.]

As writers, our ears are tuned for measuring the quality of the words we hear around us. Sometimes, our ears catch speech we think is pure poetry or could be if read that way. We find that with a little rearranging these words express more humor, more awe, more despair, or more of the irony and quirkiness of human nature than most speakers and listeners know are there. When poets insert line breaks to bring out the deeper evocations they hear, it is called found poetry. For decades, poets have played with this form. In A Kick in the Head: An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms, the description is simple: “A found poem contains words or phrases not intended as poetry — perhaps a shopping list — and arranged on the page as a poem.”

Here is a short discussion and examples and at the article’s end, more links to explore found poetry as a form.

Wikipedia’s longer definition says it is:

a type of poetry created by taking words, phrases, and sometimes whole passages from other sources and reframing them as poetry 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, syntax and meaning of the original…

The entry goes on to say that found poetry is closely connected to new ideas about authorship that came about in the 20th century: as John Hollander put it, “anyone may ‘find’ a text; the poet is he who names it.” Some believe the Dadaism movement was a predecessor to the use of the found poem form because followers of that school of thought placed everyday practical objects in an environment that was aesthetic, which called into question the definition of art.

Stylistically, the Wikipedia entry explains:

… found poetry is similar to the visual art of “appropriation” in which two- and three-dimensional art is created from recycled items, giving ordinary/commercial things new meaning when put within a new context in unexpected combinations or juxtapositions.

Have you come across this 2003 poem in which, Slate writer Hart Seely found poetry in the speeches and news briefings of Donald Rumsfeld? It is from a transcript of a February 12, 2002 Department of Defense news briefing in which Rumsfeld ruminated on the unknown and appears in Pieces of Intelligence: The Existential Poetry of Donald H. Rumsfeld (2003).

The Unknown

As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.

We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.

But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don’t know
We don’t know.

The baseball play calls of Phil Rizzuto, a decades-long announcer for the New York Yankees, form another well-known example of a public figure’s speech converted into found poetry. Some of his rambles and commentaries were collected and reformatted by Hart Seely, this time along with Tom Peyer, for a volume of found poetry entitled Oh Holy Cow: The Selected Verse of Phil Rizzuto. Here is an example arranged from Rizzuto’s thoughts on the death of Yankees catcher Thurmon Munson in an airplane crash:

The Man in the Moon by Phil Rizzuto

The Yankees have had a traumatic four days.
Actually five days.
That terrible crash with Thurman Munson.
To go through all that agony,
And then today,
You and I along with the rest of the team
Flew to Canton for the services,
And the family…
Very upset.

You know, it might,
It might sound a little corny.
But we have the most beautiful full moon tonight.

And the crowd,
Enjoying whatever is going on right now.
They say it might sound corny,
But to me it’s like some kind of a,
Like an omen.

Both the moon and Thurman Munson,
Both ascending up into heaven.
I just can’t get it out of my mind.
I just saw the full moon,
And it just reminded me of Thurman Munson,
And that’s it.

 ****

After reading these found poems, I tried my hand finding poems in the material around me, which at the moment is mostly guidebook literature about Denmark where I am visiting. Here are a few of my attempts taken from sources online and in print, which are noted at the end of each poem. In using others’ material for found poems, we do have to be careful about plagiarism so it is best to use either attributions, titles or footnotes that name the source of the words. I opted for the footnote style so I could use title space to help readers experience what I did in the words:

Getting to the Meeting Place
(As if it Could be Made Easy for Embattled Peoples)

The sandormen is a coiling way
to go right to the place you can see
the two waters meeting each other.

Otherwise, it is just
a fifteen-minute pleasant walk
through the bush and by the sea.

Source: Comments about Grenen, Denmark on TripAdvisor

****

Things to Do In Aarhus, Denmark
After Gary Synder’s “Things to Do Around a Lookout”

Walk on the trails through the Risskov Forest that slopes
with beech trees and bay views.

Gather ramson leaves for the fish cakes later;
try to make yourself heard among the rooks.

Visit the old bathing establishment used in winter
by the Vikings, today’s cold water bathers.

Next stop, fishmongers, your chance to buy
delicious Scandinavian fish cakes and remoulade.

Take them with you; step around the building to the wooden
benches with views of the yacht harbor.

Wellies are convenient in the surf or in rainy weather,
and a warm hood or, in summer, perhaps a sunhat.

The water is often quite shallow.
Periodically, large waves roll onto the shore.

The blue flag means you can trust the water quality,
that there is a lifeguard present.

This is a all-year-round tour.
Periodically, large waves roll onto the shore.

Source:  Everytrail.com

****

A Welcome Affirmation

If you prefer organic buns with marmalade
go back a bit to Emmerys Bakery, Nordre Strandvej 24,
where you may also sit down and have a coffee.

Source: Everytrail.com

And I have to add that when my two grandsons found out I was writing about found poetry, they joined in quickly to create an impressive found poem. They arranged the cards from their current favorite board game, Munchkins Apocalypse, to make rhyming lines. I broke their long list into stanzas and created a title I think resonates with the emotional information their formation provoked in me, and I created the attribution (they provided the author’s name):

For the Children of the 21st Century
by Munchkin A. Pocolypse

                 With thanks to Steve Jackson

Militia, kid, clean socks
Giant meteor, ragnarocks
The chosen one, abomination
Presidential proclamation

Cane toad, hair spray
Scapegoat, pepper spray
Colander, salt spray
#Occupydoomsday

TV preacher, safety dance
Destroying angel, fire ants
Cheat, gog and magog,
False alarm, police dog

Blizzard, zombie plague, pod people
Giant atomic, asp, sheeple
National gourd, great cthulhu
Holy ghost, bird flu

Carnivorous St. Augustine grass
Tweet your last words, nukular blast
Temporary respite, rain of fire
Basket of ferns, friendly fire

Super Munchkin, Octobear,
Commando raid, highway flare
Invasive species, tear gas
Tidal wave, laughing gas

Dehydrated water, paranoid
Small, well-aimed asteroid
Solar powered radio with flashlight and duck call
Shell shocked, Commie, blame the government, firewall

Bazooka, survival school
Safety vest, survival tool
Infrared goggles, arm-y boots
Global worming, Ghillie suit

Calendar stone
A drone of your own
Face paint, rogue office supplies
Rodents of unusual size

School of hard knocks
Tin foil socks
Traffic sign armor, nail gun
Meals rejected by every one!

Source: Munchkin Apocalypse Board Game card list.

****

If you’d like to read more found poems, there are good samples online. The Found Poetry Review offers some free from each volume they have published. Reading them will have you hearing poetry and meaning in far more of what you read and overhear than ever before.

And some more links:

“Found Poem, Poetic Form” on webstie Poet’s.org

“How to Write Found Poetry” on website Creative Writing Now

“What is Found Poetry” on  website The Write Practice