# 20 ... More stuff on Found Poems

I thought the Found Poems to be quite interesting. They are really fun to do as well. It shows how a poem can be formed from the simplest things found in every day life.

Here is some extra stuff that I found on this type of poem. (Courtesy Poets.org)

(This is also for those of you that wanted an explanation of the form before the examples of poems)

Found poems take existing texts and refashion them, reorder them, and present them as poems. The literary equivalent of a collage, found poetry is often made from newspaper articles, street signs, graffiti, speeches, letters, or even other poems. A pure found poem consists exclusively of outside texts: the words of the poem remain as they were found, with few additions or omissions. Decisions of form, such as where to break a line, are left to the poet. Examples of found poems can be seen in the work of Blaise Cendrars, David Antin, and Charles Reznikoff. In his book Testimony, Reznikoff created poetry from law reports, such as this excerpt: Amelia was just fourteen and out of the orphan asylum; at her first job--in the bindery, and yes sir, yes ma'am, oh, so anxious to please. She stood at the table, her blond hair hanging about her shoulders, "knocking up" for Mary and Sadie, the stichers ("knocking up" is counting books and stacking them in piles to be taken away).

Read more on found poems here.

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A found poem for you to enjoy...

Mayakovsky In New York: A Found Poem by Annie Dillard

New York: You take a train that rips through versts.
It feels as if the trains were running over your ears.

For many hours the train flies along the banks
of the Hudson about two feet from the water. At the stops,
passengers run out, buy up bunches of celery,
and run back in, chewing the stalks as they go.

Bridges leap over the train with increasing frequency.

At each stop an additional story grows
onto the roofs. Finally houses with squares
and dots of windows rise up. No matter how far
you throw back your head, there are no tops.

Time and again, the telegraph poles are made
of wood. Maybe it only seems that way.

In the narrow canyons between the buildings, a sort
of adventurer-wind howls and runs away
along the versts of the ten avenues. Below
flows a solid human mass. Only their yellow
waterproof slickers hiss like samovars and blaze.
The construction rises and with it the crane, as if
the building were being lifted up off the ground
by its pigtail. It is hard to take it seriously.

The buildings are glowing with electricity; their evenly
cut-out windows are like a stencil. Under awnings
the papers lie in heaps, delivered by trucks.
It is impossible to tear oneself away from this spectacle.

At midnight those leaving the theaters drink a last soda.
Puddles of rain stand cooling. Poor people scavenge
bones. In all directions is a labyrinth of trains
suffocated by vaults. There is no hope, your eyes
are not accustomed to seeing such things.

They are starting to evolve an American gait out
of the cautious steps of the Indians on the paths of empty
Manhattan. Maybe it only seems that way.

About the author:

born April 30, 1945, Pittsburgh, Pa., U.S.

original name Annie Doak American writer best known for her meditative essays on the natural world.

Dillard attended Hollins College in Virginia (B.A., 1967; M.A., 1968). She was a scholar-in-residence at Western Washington University in Bellingham from 1975 to 1978 and on the faculty of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., from 1979 to 1981.

Dillard's first published book was a collection of poetry, Tickets for a Prayer Wheel (1974). It was as an essayist, however, that she earned critical as well as popular acclaim. In her Pulitzer Prize-winning collection Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974), she distilled from keen observations of her own habitat the essential enigmas of religious mysticism. Critics hailed the work as an American original in the spirit of Henry David Thoreau's Walden. Holy the Firm (1977) and Teaching a Stone to Talk (1982) explore similar themes. Living by Fiction (1982), Encounters with Chinese Writers (1984), and The Writing Life (1989) present her views of literary craftsmanship and the writer's role in society.

She published an autobiographical narrative, An American Childhood, in 1987. When her first novel, The Living, appeared in 1992, reviewers found in its depictions of the logging culture of the turn-of-the-20th-century Pacific Northwest the same visionary realism that distinguished the author's nonfiction. The Annie Dillard Reader was published in 1994 and Mornings Like This: Found Poems arrived in 1995. For the Time Being (1999) presents Dillard's wide-ranging reflections on, among other subjects, the meaning of suffering and death and the nature of God. The novel The Maytrees (2007) takes as its subject Lou and Toby Maytree, a married couple living on Cape Cod.

Dillard, Annie. (2010). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved March 4, 2010, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://search.eb.com/eb/article-9000451

# 19... Sestina

This was a tough one for me to write. I am sure I am not going to be the first, nor the last to say, I STRONGLY DETEST WRITING SESTINAS!!!

Here is mine from the images chosen in class. I hope you enjoy. Feel free to leave comments on what I could have done different or what you think could/ should be changed.

Thanks.

History revisited

I look at my skin and feel the pain
of those that passed before me shackled
by chains. With tears in their voices they cried out with hope
for the day to come where they could reach
the end of their suffering and stop crouching over their dead loved ones mourning.

I look at my skin and feel despair.

Through the books of history I see in their eyes despair.
I see the scars on their backs revealing their pain.

Young children clutching what’s left of the only love they knew and mourn.

Bodies swaying from trees, innocent children sitting in jail, men and women shackled
like slaves. I try to go back in time to see if I can reach
anyone to help stop the inequality. But no one hears my plea to stop the insanity, there’s no hope.

Signs calling for desegregation show a sign of hope.

A sigh of relief heard, could there be an end to the despair?

Hands raised in unison grasping for some sort of freedom out of reach.

A glimmer of hope is seen on the horizon bringing joy to wash away the pain.

The physical chains removed, a people no longer shackled

to one another. The killing may cease, there may be no more reason to mourn.

Once swinging from trees, the bodies removed, given to those left behind to mourn.

Gunshots grow quieter, fading into the distance. Prayers are being answered, at least one hopes.

No more clamoring of steel, the iron shackles
removed. A brighter future awaits and there is no more feeling of despair.

The wounds begin to heal. The ongoing agony of inflicted pain
is no more. A sign of the long-awaited liberty is now within their reach.

The dead begin to rise, from the ground their hands reach
for the heavens. A nation weeps, cries for the useless killings through mourning.
Their eyes still hold their story as one sees the pain
etched in them. Warmth and smiles dance across faces with the advent of hope.

Yet starting a new life seems daunting not knowing where to go brings despair.

And the fear left inside leave men cowering as they did when they were once shackled.

Emancipating ourselves from the mental shackles
will set us free. Will help us strive and reach
the ideal life we fought for. There will be no more sorrow, no more despair.

The healing process will begin and the mourning
shall stop for the loved ones fallen. A new strength shall be instilled bringing everlasting hope.

Those that died before us died to take away our pain.

The shackles now fully removed or are they? Ceasefire – a call for hope.

Freedom once unattainable has now been reached? No more reason for despair?

Mourning for useless killings now part of the past? Is this the end? Will there be no more pain?