Found Poem
Contest
Just for fun, let's have
a Found Poetry Contest! This contest is inspired by Neal
Whitman's poem, "Sheriff's
Log", in the current Sketchbook. This
poem got me to thinking about recent topics in the
news—so
many speeches, global warming, sports, war etc.
Send in your Found Poetry to: found@poetrywriting.org
Subject Line: Found Poem Contest + Author Name + Title +
Genre
Deadline will be Midnight
Thursday, December 1, 2011.
First Place Prize:
Fifty US Dollars ~ $50.00
Second Place : Twenty-Five US
Dollars ~ $25.00
Just a little something to bring in
the New Year: The price of a dinner, or a cup of coffee at
Starbucks!
All poems will be Published in the
December 31, 2011 Little Black Book.
Editors Karina Klesko
and John Daleiden will announce the winners December 31,
2011.
Contest
Rules
1. Entry must be the
work of one writer.
2. Entry may be written
in any genre; include the genre name with
the submission. Please send only one
poem per e-mail. If you
are submitting a
second poem, send it in a second e-mail.
3. Entry may contain no
more than twenty-five lines; this includes
spaces between verses if more than one
verse is included in the
poem.
4. Each writer may enter
two poems, however, each entry must be in a different
genre: free verse, villanelle, sestina,
etheree, fibonacci to name a few genre as
examples; any genre is
acceptable.
5. Entry must be
titled.
6. Entry must contain no
profanity and / or unsavory language.
7. Entries must comply
with the definition of Found Poetry listed
below.
8. Each entry must
include a statement identifying the source and or
sources of the original text of the
Found Poem. Sources may
include:
audio, print, web based resources as well as sources described
in the
definitions below. Please
be specific. Explain, generally how you have
altered
the original text of your
Found Poem. The editors may want to include
some or all of your explanation. For
examples of this process see the work
published in The Found Poetry
Review.
9. Send entry to: found@poetrywriting.org
10. Submission Deadline will be
Midnight Thursday, December 1, 2011.
11. First Place Prize
$50.00 US; Second Place Prize ~ $ 25.00. The
decision of the judges is
final. All Entries will be published in the
December 31, 2011 Little
Black Book.
We look forward to reading your
Found Poem submissions!
Karina Klesko Poetrywriting -
dot - org Sketchbook Administrator
karina@poetrywriting.org
John Daleiden, webmaster
for Sketchbook
webmaster@poetrywriting.org
Two Definitions
of Found Poetry
I
Found Poetry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Found_poetry
From Wikipedia, the
free encyclopedia
Found poetry is a type of
poetry created by taking words, phrases, and sometimes whole
passages from other sources and reframing them as poetry by
making changes in spacing and/or lines (and consequently
meaning), or by altering the text by additions and/or deletions.
The resulting poem can be defined as either treated: changed in
a profound and systematic manner; or untreated: virtually
unchanged from the order, syntax and meaning of the
original.
Examples from
Wikipedia
Definition
1
An example of found poetry
appeared in William Whewell's "An Elementary Treatise on
Mechanics":[1]
Hence no force, however
great,
can stretch a cord, however fine,
into a
horizontal line
which is accurately
straight.
In 2003, Slate
writer Hart Seely found poetry in the speeches and news
briefings of Donald Rumsfeld. In a transcript of a Department of
Defense news briefing from February 12, 2002, Rumsfeld ruminated
on "The Unknown":[2]
As we know,
There are
known knowns.
There are things we know we know
We also
know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know
there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also
unknown
unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't
know.
Hart Seely published
Rumsfeld's poetry in the book, Pieces of Intelligence: The
Existential Poetry of Donald H. Rumsfeld (2003).
American composer Phil
Kline set Rumsfeld's lyrics to music in "Rumsfeld's
Songs", a song
cycle released on Zippo
Songs (2004). Pianist Bryant Kong also used Rumsfeld's
lyrics on his release "Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld".[3]
In
July 2009, US talkshow host Conan
O'Brien twice asked actor William
Shatner to deliver the written
words of former Alaskan Governor and Vice-Presidential nominee
Sarah
Palin in the style of beat poetry.
Shatner performed Palin's Farewell Speech [4] on July 27, 2009,
and several of her "Tweets" [5] on 29 July, 2009, during The
Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien. Shatner was supported by a
bongo player and double-bassist.
Another well known example
of a public figure's speech being converted into found poetry
was the baseball play calls of Phil Rizzuto. Rizzuto was the
announcer for the New York Yankees baseball team for some 40
years, and some of his at times rambling or disjointed
commentary was collected and reformatted by Hart Seely and Tom
Peyer into a collection of Rizzuto's found poetry. An example is
Rizzuto's thoughts on the death of Yankees catcher Thurmon
Munson in an airplane crash:
"The Man in the
Moon"
The Yankees have had a traumatic four
days.
Actually five days.
That terrible crash with Thurman
Munson.
To go through all that agony,
And then
today,
You and I along with the rest of the team
Flew to
Canton for the services,
And the family...
Very
upset.
You know, it might,
It might sound a little
corny.
But we have the most beautiful full moon
tonight.
And the crowd,
Enjoying whatever is going on
right now.
They say it might sound corny,
But to me it's
like some kind of a,
Like an omen.
Both the moon and
Thurman Munson,
Both ascending up into heaven.
I just
can't get it out of my mind.
I just saw the full moon,
And
it just reminded me of Thurman Munson,
And that's
it.
A quarterly online
literary journal devoted to found poetry, The Found Poetry
Review [6], debuted in 2011. The inaugural issue featured
traditional centos and poems taken from textbooks, Marcel
Duchamp paintings, Wikipedia
articles, Wonder
Woman comics and
more.
References:
1. Whewell, William.
An Elementary Treatise on
Mechanics, page 44. Cambridge
(England), 1819.
2.
The Poetry of D.H. Rumsfeld, Hart Seely, Slate Magazine, 2 April 2003
3.
Tsioulcas, Anastasia (2004-07-31). "Music". Billboard
(Nielsen Business Media, Inc.) 116 (31): 14. ISSN
0006-2510.
4.
The Tonight Show With Conan
O'Brien
5. The Tonight Show With Conan
O'Brien
6. http://www.foundpoetryreview.com
Definition
2
Definition information
from The
Found Poetry Review
From Poets.org:
Found poems take existing texts and
refashion them, reorder them, and present them as poems. The
literary equivalent of a collage, found poetry is often made
from newspaper articles, street signs, graffiti, speeches,
letters, or even other poems.
Examples of Found Poetry
For a few examples of found poetry,
check out the following sources:
Found Poetry and Fair Use
Standards
The editors do not claim copyright on
any source material incorporated into the poems published on
this site. We believe that publishing found poetry falls under
Fair Use standards, and aim to adhere to the Center for Social
Media’s “Code
of Best Practices for Fair Use in Poetry,” which contains
the following guidelines for found poetry:
NEW WORKS “REMIXED” FROM
OTHER MATERIAL: ALLUSION, PASTICHE, CENTOS, ERASURE, USE OF
“FOUND” MATERIAL, POETRY-GENERATING
SOFTWARE
DESCRIPTION: What is now
called remixing is a contemporary version of allusion or
pastiche and has long been an important part of poetic practice.
In general, it takes existing poetry (or literary prose) as its
point of reference. In some cases, however, the stuff of poetic
remix may come from other sources, including (but not limited
to) advertising copy and ephemeral journalism. Members of the
poetry community also recognize that technology has extended the
range of techniques by which language from a range of sources
may be reprocessed as new creative work.
PRINCIPLE: Under fair use, a
poet may make use of quotations from existing poetry, literary
prose, and non-literary material, if these quotations are
re-presented in poetic forms that add value through significant
imaginative or intellectual transformation, whether direct or
(as in the case of poetry-generating software)
indirect.
LIMITATIONS:
- Mere exploitation of existing copyrighted material,
including uses that are solely “decorative” or “entertaining,”
should be avoided.
- Likewise, the mere application of computer
technology does not, in itself, render quotation or re-use of
an existing poem fair.
- If
recognizable in the final product, quotations should be brief
in relation to their sources, unless there is an articulable
rationale for more extensive quotation.
- The
poet should provide attribution in a conventionally
appropriate form unless it would be truly impractical or
artistically inappropriate to do so.
© 2011 The Found Poetry Review.
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