Found poetry is created from existing written or spoken materials, with no rules regarding structure or style. It should not be confused with parallel poetry, which imitates another poet’s style. Found poetry can be found anywhere and is often used as a creative exercise.
Found poetry is a type of poetry composed from other existing written or spoken materials. Since these materials already exist, the poet is thought to have “found” the poem within them. To create or “find” this type of poem, a poet might take words and phrases from another work, or he might rearrange the entire content of a work. Similar to other types of poetry, found poems can be written in a variety of styles. Found poetry should not be confused with parallel poetry, a type of poetry that relies on the poet writing an entirely new poem in the style of another poem or poet.
Typically, there are no rules regarding the structure of a found poem. The found poem could be in the style of an epic or ballad, or it could follow the formats of haiku or limerick poetry. Some poets may prefer rhyming verse poems and others may write poems in blank verse. The styles of sonnets, odes, and narrative poems can all be represented with found poetry. As long as existing materials permit, a found poet can create any style of poetry he desires, and some poets may even take up the challenge of using existing materials to create a certain style of poetry.
Poets could “find” poetry anywhere. Some poets have found poetry in passages from books, speeches by public figures, and even ordinary communication items such as letters. Sometimes, literature and language teachers create assignments for students to write a piece of found poetry based on their favorite short story or chapter in a book. Writers could practice this exercise on their own, to flex their creative muscles or just for fun.
Due to the echoy nature of found poetry, it is often confused with or taught alongside parallel poetry. It is important to understand that although these two types of poetry draw from other sources, they are not the same. When a poet writes a parallel poem, he chooses another poem or another poet’s style and models his own poem on it. When he writes a found poem, however, he takes materials that have already been written or spoken about and rearranges them in some structural way to create a poem where apparently none already existed. In other words, the writer of a parallel poem writes the poem from scratch, while the writer of a found poem has looked at other materials and “found” the poem.
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