by Ashley Lister

 There are many interpretations of the phrase ‘found poetry.’
To my mind, found poetry is the result of taking an existing text, refashioning
it on the page, and presenting the words as a poem. It’s a technique that’s been used by Ezra Pound, William
Carlos Williams and T S Eliot amongst many others. It’s an exercise that’s fun
and produces surprisingly effective results.

The following two poems come from text within a piece of my
own short fiction, a short story called ‘Victoria’s Hand.’

Found Poem #1

The words
hung
between them like
a thrown gauntlet. 

The Grandfather
in the hall outside
continued to tick
loudly. 

Algernon studied her face
with an expression that was
almost
comical. 

“Victoria?” he whispered
meekly.  “I don’t think
I heard you correctly.  Could you
please forgive me and
say that again?”

Victoria said,
“Get your cock out.”

Found Poem #2

A young lady has a
right
to know about these things
before making
a commitment
of this magnitude. 

Would you care
to tongue
my hole
for a moment so I can decide
whether
or not you
may keep your
moustache?

The notion behind this exercise is to give a writer a more
acute awareness of prosodic features, such as the pauses suggested by line
breaks, and to allow authors to interpret the layout of their work on the page
as poetry.

As always, it will be a pleasure to read your found poetry
in the comments box below.