In response to the recent poem that I posted, called Lullaby in Blue, our own Denise Lanier sent me this a beautiful poem. If you recall, she shared a very poignant experience with us in the comments of the Lullaby in Blue poem.
Denise’s poem is a “found” poem. After the poem, you will find her explanation of how to write a “found” poem. It’s a very interesting exercise and I hope that you who have expressed difficulty understanding and appreciating poetry will find it useful.
LISTEN, THERE IS NO MERCY, by Denise Lanier
- a found poem, taken from the text of Sylvia Plath
Flat moons dull with blood
Perfectly voiceless In a quarry of silences
Utterly lovely
Gauze sarcophagi Fumy, spiritous mists
Glowing, as lit from within
With holiness
Blue eye Comfort me
The saints will all be blue Floating
Not sweet like Mary
A queen Fatal Virgin
With her lion-red body, her wings of glass
Selves dissolving
Peel off The thin papery feeling
The old story And the star
Then the substanceless blue
Red The stain That killed her
The sin The sin
Bald and shiny, with pockets of wishes
Dirty girl Stuck in a barb wire snare
The grave cave
You are the baby in the barn
Starless and fatherless, a dark water
Cold as snow breath That melts to a shriek
Squeak like a cat
Mouth-ash, ash of eye
The mouth of Christ Rocked shut
Uttering nothing but blood
Barely daring to breathe The blood jet is poetry
Molding onto lips like lies
The cello moans
Stop crying Open your hand
Here is a hand
Dead hands A queen Living doll
Bag full of God
Stitches to show what’s missing
Will you marry it, marry it, marry it
__________________________________
Here are the poet’s comments:
“OK, as far as creating the poem, it was really easy and fun, though
admittedly time consuming. I made copies of about a dozen of my
favorite Plath poems, then took a pen and went through them
underlining word pairings, phrases, even single words, that I liked &
felt drawn to. I typed them all up and then cut them out (though you
could simply use the cut & paste feature of a word processor), then
arranged and rearranged the strips of paper on my desk – like a
flexible kind of word puzzle. Instead of a picture, the puzzle pieces
will form a story; instead of the puzzle pieces only fitting together
one right way, they will fit together in almost-endless ways. You get
to decide, in the end, which words/phrases will go next to each other,
to create images and ideas – to tell a story.
I use this as a poetry exercise when I teach, and children,
especially, really respond to the hands-on interactivity, to the wide-
openness, to the surprising mix of images and ideas that can occur.
For example, if a handful of words chosen from a text list among them,
say, black, pillow, dog and shadow – it’s common, and quite OK, for
black to end up the describing word for the dog or the shadow, even
the pillow. It gets exciting, though, when the more unpredictable
choices happen – like shadow dog or dog-black shadow. And isn’t the
idea of a pillow dog much more fun than the every day dog pillow?
Often, I’ll pair two kids, have one choose the text and write it down
on strips of pre-cut paper – then have the other kid arrange the word
puzzle into a poem. They write that poem in their notebooks, and then
the word-chooser gets to mix up and then remake those same words into
his/her own poem. They always seem to think it some kind of wonderful
magic that such different poems/images/stories can be crafted out of
the same group of words. (and, truth be told, it is magic. my favorite
kind.)
A Found Poem can be created using any kind of existing text, from
books to songs to newspapers to the words taken from billboards as you
pass them on a road trip (only for passengers, of course!). It can be
a therapeutic exercise, “recycling” words/phrases from your divorce
decree, or taking a stack of letters from your child and recrafting a
poem/letter/story back to them. It’s just like refrigerator poetry
magnets, except you get the freedom to choose the words/phrases from
any source you like.”
denise-
just beautiful! thanks for sharing.
Denise, I just wish you had been my teacher, I am so envious of your students. I had never heard of a found poem or recycling things already written, so very clever. I just love that whole concept. Just one more thing learned thru the wonder of the blog. Also, that is one great pic, where was that taken?
I took the photo in Bermuda last summer, Candy. A golden hour in blue.
Denise: thank you, I also had not heard of this, and it’s a wonderful idea. It would be a really nice way to write a love note to someone, or a valentine, or to work out a serious, sad emotion. I can see how it could be therapeutic. It’s sort of like when musicians take a riff from a different song and incorporate it into their new song…very cool.
Yes, exactly like a riff!
I second that Candy had to say. In West Chester, PA, West Chester University sponsors an Annual Poetry Conference in June and I will be sure to go this year. Such beauty in your words…it makes my heart sing.
Denise—Just…WOW!!!! Thank you for this new idea and thank you for sharing of yourself with all of us. As Candy said, your kids are lucky to have you—and so are we!!!!
Denise, this is wonderful! Beautiful. And what you have to say about the process, especially about how magical it can be for children, is so inspiring and well-explained. (Your example of coming up with “pillow-dog” versus “dog pillow” perfectly conveys what an imaginative exercise this can be!)
It’s so interesting to think of making “found poetry” from unexpected sources. As part of my job I edit magazine articles about dogs, and these are usually pretty straightforward, commenting on various doggy topics or providing tips and information … but recently I received as a submission a found poem mostly comprised of words and phrases were taken from the standard for a particular breed. (The “standard” is that official, detailed description of the ideal specimen of that breed which is used as the measure against which dogs are judged at dog shows.)
I’ll share it here, in case anyone is interested, simply as another example of this poetic form. (The piece appeared in the December 2010 AKC Gazette):
“Bouvier des Flandres (a found poem from the AKC breed standard)”
By Robin Boyd
Well look where you are now, dirty beard,
cow dog, beast of butchers and cattlemen.
All they wanted was help in their work
and they got you
steady, resolute and fearless,
strong and never clumsy.
Your gaze is like looking into a dark-eyed heaven—
alert and brilliant, intelligent and vigorous,
daring all at once.
Your head is an island you reach
after swimming many miles—a safe and welcome place to rest,
impressive in scale like a rising moon still low on the horizon.
Finally, that occasional small white star on your chest …
they allow it sometimes, perhaps to make a wish
that we could all be like you—
dirty beard, butcher beast, cattle dog, angel.
(The poet, Robin Boyd, is from of Jaffrey, New Hampshire; her first book of poems, Among the Slow Roots, was published in 2007 by Gap Mountain Press.)
“that occasional small white star on your chest …
they allow it sometimes, perhaps to make a wish
that we could all be like you—”
I love that so very much; thank you for sharing!
OK, just for fun:
Island Moon Dog
Fearless angel beast
Swimming miles of low horizon
To reach your steady heaven
Welcome, daring angel
Rest your head
You are safe now
Make a wish
A small white star
Dark-eyed & brilliant all at once
Was the moon dog poem inspired by the Bouvier poem, Denise? Nice work!
Yes, I just lifted words right from the text of that poem. I’m kind of obsessed with both canines and found poems, so I couldn’t help myself, especially since poetry was the topic at hand
LOVE the breed standard found poem
Ann, I just had a chance to listen to your last Hash Hags show during my lunch and I found it very interesting. Great topic. Now can you do a post where you read some poetry and we can listen, maybe that will help some us that are poetry challenged.
Thanks for your kind responses, everybody – & thanks again to Ann for posting part of my poem!
I’m so thrilled by the idea that some of you might check out a poetry conference. Yay