I've been reading a lot of primary source documents for my class and am thinking about transforming a prose document into poetry. Let's consider this a form of a found poem. Take a letter, a speech, a passage from a favorite book, any portion of prose with some meaning, and use words from it to write a poem. (Note that if you use excerpts from poems by other authors that you will be writing a cento. You can read more about the cento at Poets.org.)
Here's a poem I wrote based on the words from the chapter Winter Animals in Walden: Or Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau.
Hills rose up around meand in misty weather
loomed like fabulous creatures.
I walked freely
far from the village street,
where I heard the forlorn note
of a hooting owl.
At length the jays arrived,
then the chickadees in flocks,
hammering away with their bills.
And once a sparrow
alighted upon my shoulder.
For a moment,
I was more distinguished
by that circumstance
than any epaulet
I could have worn.
I hope you'll join me this week in turning prose into poetry. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.
At random, I found and restructured the following:
ReplyDeleteDear Mr. Warhol
Your guests
have left
(we have
been advised)
a congregation
of debris
and litter
in public
areas after
hours. You
never bothered
to clean
your fourth
floor space.
People such
as you
(contrary to
rules and
regulations) might
present a
serious problem.
Your lease,
of course,
does not
permit such
use and
occupancy. You
are hereby
directed not
to have
any such
parties in
this building.
Here's a link to the source:
http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/08/factory.html
NO FLU FOR YOU! (COMMERCIAL JINGLE)
ReplyDeleteEach sip you can feel 24 nutrients
Bursting with sunshine-y citrus
Flow through your body in wave of
Deliciousness!
It’s no wonder we call it “Super.”
Support your immune system,
No coffee, no crash,
Emergen –C!
-- Found on an Emergen-C supplement box --
(c) Charles Waters 2013 all rights reserved.
I've been in St. Louis all week doing social studies stuff. Nice work, gentlemen!
ReplyDelete