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Found Poems
Description
When a poet creates a "found poem," he or she adds poetic structure to a text that was previously non-rhythmical or purely informational. By doing so, the poet creates new cadences, emphases, and meanings, demonstrating that what words evoke varies depending on the context in which they are presented.
To use found poems in your lesson, show students how authors like Lawson
Inada have taken plain or non-narrative texts and have used poetic tools
-- line breaks, rhythms, etc. -- to draw new meaning from the language.
Teachers should begin by asking students to consider how the poetic structure
of a found poem rearranges the text's meaning. Students should consider
an assortment of documents that are traditionally used for instructional
purposes. These may be historical or contemporary documents, but it's best
to choose an assortment that contains simple, informative language: manuals,
advertisements, catalogues, and the like. For example, teacher Sandra Childs
asks her students to construct poems from historical documents or the exhibit
catalogue provided by the Nikkei Legacy Center. In rearranging these texts
into poetic form, students should attempt to distill new meaning from the
words they find and to explain the ways in which the poetic structures they've
applied change the language's implications.
Benefits
By asking students to create found poems, teachers encourage students' creativity
and sharpen their analytical skills. In order to find texts that can be
adapted in this way, students must learn to think carefully about texts
they would ordinarily overlook; they must consider what can really be evoked
by texts that seek simply to inform or direct us.
Students also learn to think more carefully about prosody. In creating a found poem, students must figure out for themselves how rhythms, line breaks, and word sounds (e.g., rhymes and alliterations) help to focus the reader on a poet's intended meaning.
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Authors and Literary Works