June 16, 2005

• Poetry, I've Found You
  

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  Found poetry is the rearrangement of words or phrases taken randomly from other sources (example: clipped newspaper headlines, bits of advertising copy,
  handwritten cards pulled from a hat) in a manner that gives the rearranged words a completely new meaning.

  A classic example was found in William Whewell’s "Elementary Treatise on Mechanics":

  "And hence no force, however great,

  can stretch a cord, however fine,

  into a horizontal line

  that shall be absolutely straight.”

  though when it was pointed out to him, an unamused Whewell changed the wording in the next edition.

  Stylistically, it is similar to the visual art
  of "appropriation"
  in which two- and three-dimensional art is created from recycled items,
  giving ordinary/commercial things new meaning when put
  within a new context in unexpected combinations or juxtapositions.
  Appropriation art often plays upon a double-edged meaning,
  wherein the object's new artistic meaning makes a political or
  philosophical comment on its original purpose, and the same can be
  said for the way 'found poetry' can contain clever wordplay or evoke
  ironic contradictions in the way we use language.

  My appropriation:

  Million dollar scratch.
  Board meeting, battery warf,
  Oversized load,
  U.S. Foodservice,
  Kazmouski, local 379,
  South 93.

  • 8:26 pm
  • 1 Comment