Found
What is a found poem?
A Found poem requires a writer to find some sort of text, and then write a poem stemming from that text. This is different than simple "inspiration" by anything found in nature; rather, the writer should discover the words of someone else and use them as a starting point for their own poem, thus appropriating those words. Things from which Found poetry can be created is just about anything with words: coupons, articles, newspapers, labels, instructions, essays, or other poems. An erasure is only one type of Found poetry of many.
Understanding the poems:
While writing these three Found poems, I tried to maintain the theme of the intricacies of relationships. In each poem, I tried to explore a different element of the ways in which we tend to reduce situations and people to only a few parts or characteristics in order to scrutinize them. This may be the case when beginning a new relationship, comparing two people, or ending a relationship. Each poem illustrates this idea of reduction of elements for scrutiny in various forms, and are positioned in a way to represent the beginning, middle, and end of a relationship.
My first poem, "Defined by Stars," was inspired by a recent lesson I explored on Khan Academy. I had wanted to learn more about black holes and supernovae, and had watched a few videos from this educational website in order to explore this topic in depth. When I read the opening statement for the videos on this topic, I felt that I could translate this idea of supernovae and black holes into a poem about love. I wanted to maintain the educational element of the website ("teach me") as well as the content itself by drawing comparisons between a budding relationship and being attracted to a black hole.
It is important to know (as I assume that most readers will most likely look no further into the subject than this), that massive stars--and eventually supernovae--are created when millions of miniscule hydrogen atoms condense into a dense helium core; then helium atoms condense even further into a dense carbon core, and this process continues until the star is layer upon layer of elements quickly getting denser and pushing in on the already-dense core of iron. Eventually, the atoms in the core are under so much pressure that they begin to collapse in on one another after an enormous amount of resistance by the atoms, and this massive amount of elemental matter is reduced further and further in on an infinitely small speck--thus creating a black hole, and pulling everything floating around it into it at a great force (and never to escape) due to gravity. I attempted to use this idea and apply it to our natural methods of getting to know someone: we ask them their essential, most basic characteristics at first, and slowly get pulled into their being as they teach us about themselves.
For my second poem, "Reciprocity," I was inspired by a baking measurements conversion chart that was posted on my refrigerator. My goal was to draw connections between it and the way we naturally hash out arguments within a relationship. It is a constant struggle for who deserves more appreciation, who is more correct, and who is failing at maintaining reciprocity. With this particular poem, I wanted to illustrate an imbalanced relationship in which the speaker does not seem to be meeting the expectations of the other, who seems to be on a pedestal of sorts. In this way, the speaker is making her claim that while she may not be wholly perfect, her pieces add up to a whole and she is just as deserving of appreciation and respect. Again, this follows my overarching theme of reducing a situation to a few elements in order to scrutinize them.
For my final poem, "Crafting," I was drawn to a glue stick which had seemingly simple directions. However, we can all say from elementary school experiences that "2 strokes" of glue simply will not hold anything heavier than paper together. Therefore, the directions, implying that any "items" can be fixed or glued back together using this product, are misleading. Yet, this direction is assuredly disregarded in classrooms as children attempt to glue popsicle sticks together with this weak adhesive. In the same way, two people entering a relationship may be warned by others to do certain things or to be wary of other things in their relationship. The couple will often disregard these directions, and only realize their faults as their relationship comes to an end. Also, although rather cliche, since humans cannot be "press[ed]...out paper thin", neither this product nor its failing directions can work in mending broken relationships.
Overall, I tried to reach outside of my "hometown" and into different "triggering towns", as Richard Hugo theorizes in his article, "The Triggering Town". Not only was writing poetry about love outside of my normal realm of writing topics, but also, the "triggers" from which I created my found poetry were atypical. The website, Khan Academy, is a factually-dense and number-based website that teaches rather complex topics in depth and is not exactly the breeding ground for poetry inspiration. The craft stick and conversion chart particularly challenged my creativity as I attempted to create love poems from things that wouldn't traditionally be deemed as inspiration for love. However, I managed to extract meaning from each of my sources to work under the same theme and same range of tenor.
My first poem, "Defined by Stars," was inspired by a recent lesson I explored on Khan Academy. I had wanted to learn more about black holes and supernovae, and had watched a few videos from this educational website in order to explore this topic in depth. When I read the opening statement for the videos on this topic, I felt that I could translate this idea of supernovae and black holes into a poem about love. I wanted to maintain the educational element of the website ("teach me") as well as the content itself by drawing comparisons between a budding relationship and being attracted to a black hole.
It is important to know (as I assume that most readers will most likely look no further into the subject than this), that massive stars--and eventually supernovae--are created when millions of miniscule hydrogen atoms condense into a dense helium core; then helium atoms condense even further into a dense carbon core, and this process continues until the star is layer upon layer of elements quickly getting denser and pushing in on the already-dense core of iron. Eventually, the atoms in the core are under so much pressure that they begin to collapse in on one another after an enormous amount of resistance by the atoms, and this massive amount of elemental matter is reduced further and further in on an infinitely small speck--thus creating a black hole, and pulling everything floating around it into it at a great force (and never to escape) due to gravity. I attempted to use this idea and apply it to our natural methods of getting to know someone: we ask them their essential, most basic characteristics at first, and slowly get pulled into their being as they teach us about themselves.
For my second poem, "Reciprocity," I was inspired by a baking measurements conversion chart that was posted on my refrigerator. My goal was to draw connections between it and the way we naturally hash out arguments within a relationship. It is a constant struggle for who deserves more appreciation, who is more correct, and who is failing at maintaining reciprocity. With this particular poem, I wanted to illustrate an imbalanced relationship in which the speaker does not seem to be meeting the expectations of the other, who seems to be on a pedestal of sorts. In this way, the speaker is making her claim that while she may not be wholly perfect, her pieces add up to a whole and she is just as deserving of appreciation and respect. Again, this follows my overarching theme of reducing a situation to a few elements in order to scrutinize them.
For my final poem, "Crafting," I was drawn to a glue stick which had seemingly simple directions. However, we can all say from elementary school experiences that "2 strokes" of glue simply will not hold anything heavier than paper together. Therefore, the directions, implying that any "items" can be fixed or glued back together using this product, are misleading. Yet, this direction is assuredly disregarded in classrooms as children attempt to glue popsicle sticks together with this weak adhesive. In the same way, two people entering a relationship may be warned by others to do certain things or to be wary of other things in their relationship. The couple will often disregard these directions, and only realize their faults as their relationship comes to an end. Also, although rather cliche, since humans cannot be "press[ed]...out paper thin", neither this product nor its failing directions can work in mending broken relationships.
Overall, I tried to reach outside of my "hometown" and into different "triggering towns", as Richard Hugo theorizes in his article, "The Triggering Town". Not only was writing poetry about love outside of my normal realm of writing topics, but also, the "triggers" from which I created my found poetry were atypical. The website, Khan Academy, is a factually-dense and number-based website that teaches rather complex topics in depth and is not exactly the breeding ground for poetry inspiration. The craft stick and conversion chart particularly challenged my creativity as I attempted to create love poems from things that wouldn't traditionally be deemed as inspiration for love. However, I managed to extract meaning from each of my sources to work under the same theme and same range of tenor.
Defined by Stars
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Reciprocity
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Crafting
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