Found poetry is a type of poetry created by taking existing texts and refashioning them, reordering them, and presenting them as a new poem. The poet does not create the words themselves, but instead finds them in non-poetic contexts—such as newspapers, instruction manuals, novels, letters, or advertisements—and then selects and arranges them to create a new literary work. The act of creation in found poetry is one of curation, selection, and arrangement, rather than invention.
The Core Philosophy of Found Poetry
The philosophy behind found poetry is rooted in the idea that poetry exists all around us in the language of everyday life. The poet’s job is not necessarily to invent new words, but to discover and reveal the poetry that is already there, hidden in plain sight. This concept challenges traditional notions of authorship and originality. It shares a spirit with other art forms that use pre-existing materials, such as the ‘readymades’ of the Dadaist movement or the musical sampling in hip-hop.
Key principles of found poetry include:
- Recontextualization: By lifting words from their original context and placing them in a new one (the poem), the poet changes their meaning and imbues them with new significance.
- Selection and Erasure: The primary creative act is choosing which words to keep and which to discard. The words that are left out are often as important as the ones that remain.
- Arrangement: The poet’s arrangement of the found words—the line breaks, spacing, and stanza breaks—is what transforms the prose of the original text into the rhythm and form of a poem.
How to Create Found Poetry: Common Techniques
There are several popular methods for creating found poetry, each offering a different creative process.
1. Blackout Poetry (or Erasure Poetry)
This is one of the most visually striking and popular forms of found poetry. The poet takes a page from a book, newspaper, or other text and “erases” the majority of the text, leaving only a selection of words visible. The erasure is typically done by redacting the unwanted words with a black marker, but can also be done with white-out, paint, or by drawing over the text.
The process:
- Choose a page of text.
- Scan the page for interesting or resonant “anchor” words.
- Lightly circle the words you wish to keep.
- Read through your circled words to see if they form a coherent or evocative new text.
- Once satisfied, use a marker or other medium to black out or obscure all the words you did not select.
The remaining words form the poem, and the blacked-out page becomes a visual work of art in itself.
2. Cento
A cento (Latin for “patchwork”) is a poem that is composed entirely of lines taken from other poems or sources. Each line is borrowed from a different place, and the poet’s skill lies in weaving these disparate lines together to create a new, coherent whole. The poet must always credit the original sources of the lines.
3. Cut-Up Technique
Made famous by Dadaist Tristan Tzara and later adopted by writer William S. Burroughs, the cut-up technique involves taking a finished text (or several texts), cutting it up into individual words or phrases, and then rearranging them randomly to create a new piece of writing. This method embraces chance and the subconscious, aiming to break free from conventional thought patterns.
4. Free-Form Found Poetry
This is a more straightforward method where the poet simply lifts words and phrases from a source text and arranges them into lines and stanzas on a fresh page. The poet has complete freedom to arrange the words as they see fit to create the desired rhythm and meaning.
Examples of Found Poetry Sources
The beauty of found poetry is that a source text can be literally anything with words.
| Source Category | Specific Examples |
|---|---|
| Informational Texts | Instruction manuals, recipes, encyclopedia entries, scientific articles, textbooks. |
| Media | Newspaper articles, magazine advertisements, headlines, horoscopes, weather reports. |
| Official Documents | Legal documents, historical records, government reports (like those found in the National Archives), medical forms. |
| Literature | Novels, short stories, essays, non-fiction books. (Using another poem as a source is usually done in the specific form of a cento). |
| Personal Texts | Old letters, diaries, shopping lists, text messages, emails. |
The Legality and Ethics of Found Poetry
Found poetry raises interesting questions about copyright and plagiarism. The key principle is transformation. For a found poem to be considered a new, original work, it must significantly transform the source material. Simply copying a few sentences and adding line breaks is not enough. The selection, erasure, and arrangement must create a work that is substantively different from the original.
It is also considered good ethical practice to always cite the source of your text, especially if you are using a significant amount from a single, copyrighted work. In the case of erasure poetry, the original page itself serves as a form of citation. The U.S. Copyright Office and university libraries like University of Minnesota Libraries provide resources on the principles of fair use, which are relevant here.
Found poetry is an accessible and innovative way to engage with language. It encourages close reading, sharpens our eye for detail, and reveals the poetic potential that lies dormant in the world around us. It is a powerful reminder that creation is often a process of discovery, not just invention. It shares a conceptual link with other ‘found’ art forms, such as the wordless, calligraphic art of asemic writing, where the form of language is more important than its original meaning.