"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." - poets.org

"The literary equivalent of a collage..." This is such a great description for the process and art of found poetry. It's exactly what I do when I cut out words and phrases from old books and put them together to make poetry. 

I even have a little kit that makes putting together a found poem easier. It includes a photo box to hold everything, an x-acto knife, tweezers, and small blank pages. I used to keep my glue stick in here, but I had a few too many incidents of the words getting stuck in clumps and becoming unusable. I keep it separate, but handy.

When it's all packed away, it's compact enough to throw in my bag or take to wherever I happen to be creating around the house. 

To my knowledge there is no one "right" way to put together a found poem, but there are a few habits I find myself repeating. 

• start with a single compelling phrase and build around it
• make sure the tenses of my words agree (past, present, future tense)
• create several short poems, then see if any work together to make a larger poem
• understand that sometimes I don't have to use a lot of words to create a complete poem

I hope you discover your own found poetry! If you share what you create on Instagram, you can tag me -  @anna.k.art - and I'll see. :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Anna K.

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