Learning to write ‘Found’ Poetry

I had a really lovely time at a workshop on ‘Found’ Poetry this December. The workshop was conducted by Ankita Shah, co-founder of The Poetry Club, at G5A, Mumbai.

We worked on two different kinds of found poetry – Blackout Poetry and Cento Poetry.

It was a lot of fun! Interesting to see how different the poems of each participant were.

The workshop started with an explanation on found poetry, and how we were to work on our poems. And then, we got started with our assignments.

Here’s the poems I wrote at the workshop, with a brief note on each exercise.

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Poem no 1 is a blackout poem called “Feeling nice!”

Silence, I don’t believe it!

How come?

She continued awestruck.

Wow!

Feeling NICE!

Thank you!

Each of us were given text we could use, or were given books we could leaf through to select a page, or pages.

For me, this poem is about about the joy of silence.

I’m not too sure whether it’s me enjoying the silence, or my friends and relatives who feel nice when I keep my mouth shut once in a way – ha ha!

Maybe, it’s a little of both?

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Poem no 2 is a cento poem I titled “Risks”

You treat me good and I’ll treat you better,

She’ll be there on the days you feel down, if you let her.

We’ll be with you as you walk into another day,

And sure as the curtain falls after an act, you’ll find a path that gives you a way.

My eyes seek the light that lies beyond,

Join me. Find the light. And sing your own song.

For it’s the set of sails, not the direction of the wind,

That will keep your boat safe, so you don’t need to swim.

But swim if you must. At least try.

We all have to jump out of the nest before we can fly.

All the participants were asked to select a couple of quotes or text from social media and we all copied them down. Then, we all were asked to use at least 4 of them as is – using either the full quote or a part of it, unchanged. And create a poem with this, either with or without additional text.

Facebook gave me trouble that day, so my contribution to the quotes was text from some blogs I follow.

‘It’s the set of sails, not the direction of the wind that determines which way we will go.’ By Jim Rohn, from  Sunday Sayings – Holding on by Forestwood.

and

‘My eyes seek the light that lies beyond this darkness.’ From In Quest, a poem by Narendra Nayak.

Plus some quotes from our pool :

‘you treat me good and I’ll treat you better,’

‘as the curtain falls,‘

‘into another day’

I don’t know where these came from.

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PS : All of the ‘found’ text is  written by someone else and I do not claim any ownership of this text or the source material. I have posted links where I know the source of the material.