Writing Tip: How to Write a Found Poem

A found poem uses language from non-poetic contexts and turns it into poetry. Think of a collage — visual artists take scraps of newspaper, cloth, feathers, bottle caps, and create magic. You can do the same with language and poems.

Writing this type of poetry is a kind of treasure hunt. Search for interesting scraps of language, then put them together in different ways and see what comes out. Putting seemingly unrelated things together can create a kind of chemical spark, leading to surprising results.

You might end up rewriting the poem in the end and taking all the found language out, or you might keep the found scraps of language almost in their original form. Either way, found language is a great way to jolt your imagination.

There are no rules for found poetry, as long as you are careful to respect copyright.

Here are some potential sources of “treasure”:

instruction books, recipes

horoscopes, fortune cookies

bulletin boards

science, math, or social science textbooks

dictionaries

graffiti

pieces of letters, post cards, phone messages, notes you’ve written for yourself

grocery lists, lists of all kinds

Found poem ideas
Here are some ideas you can use to write your own found poetry:

1) Take parts of instructions for some appliance such as a microwave. Replace some of the words that refer to the appliance, using that words that talk about something else. For example: “Lift the memory carefully. Caution: edges may be sharp…”