Whether you are using a newspaper, magazine, advertisement or book – found poetry is a delicious way to indulge your creative spirit.

Here is how you get started:

Materials

Materials you will need for your found poetry project are – a pencil, indelible markers, an assortment of brush pens and an old book. My favorite books are hard covered books of any subject and age.  Some books maybe old text books or informational journals, some may be well known or obscure novels.  Excited to get started or looking for a great gift? Check out my Found Poetry Kits, all the supplies are gathered for you and put together in a lovely kit.

 

The found poetry process

Open your book to a random page, or start at the beginning and work your way from one end to the other and look for the first word of your poem and lightly mark it with a pencil. Circle the word, underline, use ( ) or  dot the word—how you mark is up to you.

Keep looking and find the next word in your poem, and mark that word, continuing through the page until your poem is complete. You may find that the words and poem find you. Or you may find that you take several passes and the found poem changes each time.

If you are intrigued, but nervous about your first effort, try a newspaper article or magazine. Or even make a copy of a page to try it out before making permanent markings.

I like using an old book because it becomes a journal of sorts for me, and the character of the book remains, as well as the new appreciation for the found poems. I believe it gives the book new life. My current found poetry book is an old mountaineering journal, very out of date and one that likely won’t be referenced ever again. Now, it is often flipped through, enjoyed and re purposed.

After reading your pencil marked words, it is time to ink your poem. I like to switch to a pen to highlight my words with boxes, circles, underlines, squiggles or any other method to call them out of the text on the page. Whatever shape, the purpose is to highlight your words.  You may like blacking out all the other words, or you may want to connect the words for a stanza or the entire poem.

After your text is found –you may want to create a visual story on the page. I like to use watercolors or brush markers to add designs, sketches, or pictures.  Sometimes I sketch with a pencil first, and sometimes I will jump in with my markers or create a string and tangle. Whatever seems to fit for you and that particular page, sketch, draw, or design images around your poem.

In my current found poetry text, I have been writing out the poems in the endpapers or cover pages of the book – many of the take on different meanings than they carry in the context of the book pages.

My found poetry examples page has more examples of this creative process.