Prompt #24 -- Double the Context

This month's prompt comes from Poets and Writers magazine. I will write the prompt exactly, then add in my own "extra challenge."  I chose this one because it is a little lighter in scope, and will cause us all to look at text that we might not ordinarily pay much attention to in a new way.

Found Poetry
"By entering a found text as a poem, the poet doubles the context. The original meaning remains intact, but now it swings between two poles," Annie Dillard wrote in Mornings Like This: Found Poems (1996). "The poet adds, or at any rate increases, the element of delight."  

Many twentieth-century writers have experimented with found poetry, whether composing entire poems that consists solely of outside texts collaged together (David Antin, Blaise Cendrars, Charles Reznikoff) or incorporating pieces of found text into poems (T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams). 

Using these poets as inspiration, create a found poem using materials from street signs, newspapers, product packaging, legal documents, or e-mails. Play with different arrangements and line breaks to form a new meaning that may be an unexpected juxtaposition to the original text.

Even though we have done many found poems, I liked the extra twist on this.  Here are some extra challenges I thought could be added on to the assignment if you wish, as a way to push a bit deeper.

Challenge #1 -- using the same material, compose it two completely different ways. In one include extra words; in the other, leave any extra words out.

Challenge #2 -- add "found" text to poems you have already written. Where can a piece of text from an email or a document punch up something you've already produced?  What new meaning or symbolism can be derived?

Of course, you are not limited to the texts listed above.  We are surrounded with words all of the time.  Start looking for new ways to be inspired and, in turn, inspire us!

Even searches can turn into poems!