Found poetry

This post puts together bits and pieces about how found poetry can be incorporated in the classroom.
Why?
1. Convenient, accessible way to generate poetry
2. Encourages wordplay, sensitivity to how a text is arranged
3. Brings literature out in the open (guerilla submission method - "found" poetry)

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Classic example:

This Is Just To Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold


William Carlos Williams


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Great contemporary example:

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.

Hart Seely, Pieces of Intelligence: The Existential Poetry of Donald H. Rumsfeld

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NYT Learning Network always provides teaching wisdom:
Student Challenge: Create a Found Poem from the News
Article on Found & Headline Poems

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Another way of generating poetry, this time using search engines to craft prose poetry paragraphs:

Poegles

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Submission: Put it somewhere, guerilla-style.


Things We Forget


Possible locations
- In a library book
- Under a chair or table
- At the back of the toilet cubicle door (captive audience)
- On the toilet mirror
- On a teacher's desk
- On a refrigerator
Etc