Poetry Book - 2. National Poetry Month 2017 - Part II - Found Poetry

National Poetry Month 2017
Part II - Found Poetry

Prompt: Found Poetry. Cento. A cento is a poem made entirely of lines from other poems. The cento differs from found poetry in that every line is taken from another poem, instead of just any borrowed material. Don't use chunks bigger than two lines long. Regular meter is not necessary, and neither is rhyme. You can change the tense of verbs, or the person of pronouns, but don't make any large changes to the lines of poetry you borrow.

Source text: A collection of poems on madness. First line of the poems.

Much Madness is divinest Sense
The rain set early in tonight
That's my last duchess painted on the wall
Come into the garden, Maud

The jealousy of an ego-bound woman
A little Madness in the Spring
She was standing at the window clothed only in a ribbon
I saw the moon nightly performing a circle about

The butcher knife goes in, first, at the top
Thou think’st ’tis much that this contentious storm
Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press
With immortality, who fears to follow

Left to herself, the serpent now began
Save me from madness, God, I beg
Once upon a midnight dreary
Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!

Prompt: Found Poem. Find fifty to hundred words you like. Words that really interest you. Check out books, magazines, mail, talk shows, walls and malls etc. The forbidden sources are poetry and song lyrics, Stay away from commercial exercises and from other sources where the intent is to be ‘poetic’. Study the words you found. Cut out everything that’s dull or unnecessary, or sounds bad, or is otherwise offensive. Cut the fifty words to half. Change punctuation is you need to. You may add up to two words of your own, if you truly need to add a word or two.

Lord of the Vault
Obscure Master of Hounds
Crossing River Eridanus

Opalescent arc
Amber foreboding
Scorching Jade Mansion

Molten the Void

Prompt: In the spirit of heading into darkness after all things unseeable and obscure, write a poem using a text that is inexplicable to you. Could be quantum physics, thermodynamics, mathematics, aeronautical engineering – or something else altogether that to you speaks in incomprehensible language. Choose a text or texts and begin selecting words and phrases as they spark associations. Write a poem using the collected words and phrases. Let your imagination fire, and don’t worry about what these terms mean in their original context.

Source text: EPR paradox. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_paradox

Spooky action at a distance
Smothered by entanglement
Dim washes of energy across the surface
And collapse of the wave function at any time

Half-silvered mirrors
Paradox bells
The state of the universe
Evolves smoothly through time

Completely at random
Unwilling to abandon
Is there one objective?
In essence: spacetime

Prompt: Headline Poem. Cut out fifty or more words from one issue of a city newspaper. Don’t use entire headlines.

Source text: The New York Times, April 09, 2017

Feeling the Pull

Ancient cannibals
Once lauded as heroes
Collide in the ring
Thin-skinned, fragmented
100 years of evolution
A near zero-world

Visions of snowflakes
Under a cloud
Where frozen smoke falls
Feeling the pull
Talk to the times
Winter is coming

Prompt: Quote Cento. When composing a cento, poets take lines from existing poems and patch them together to form a new poem. Create a cento using only quotes referenced in newspaper articles. For example, if a newspaper article contained the line “It was a tragedy,” commented Detective Smith, the line, “It was a tragedy,” would be available for you to use in your poem. While you can’t change anything within the quotes themselves, you may choose to break a longer quote in half or use just part of a quote as needed.

In my own city, I’m a refugee
Like a pot without a cover
Like a piece of china that everyone
Can hit to the ground to break

I’m home now and I have no broken bones
Sometimes, he would call me at 1 a.m. or 3 a.m.
I want to come to your home to have tea together
You forgot how good I was to you

They say: Did you do this? Did this happen?
Where are you? Are you at home?
What, you hurt your leg or something?
And you just say yes to get yourself out of prison

I can still see pagan and enchanted time
Uncontrollable desires, relieved and saved
Held by, barely contained by God
And magic never quite quelled

Beyond that, valley and river
Beyond that, vast hills
Old land, wild land, endless plain
How far does it go? To infinity or further?

I am incredibly sad right now

Prompt: Flarf Poem. Flarf Poetry typically incorporates the use of Google search results and cut-up techniques in order to create the result of poetry that is funny and/or aggressive, disturbing, and wild in its language and context.

Sumeru

Bluish tints
Of the distant mountains
Rising mighty and defiant

Translucent red enamel
Watercolor on gold
In the distance the dome
Raman was struck

Mountain Sumeru
Like a pearl
Mysterious and ancient

Land of the Lords
Rose-colored crystal
The clouds changed
Into opalescent fissures

Prompt: Flarf Poem.

The Embers of Chaos

Monolithic foreboding
Morning was dark
Gloomy clouds hanging
About the mountains

Embers were taken at sunrise
The origin of things
Like a column of gold
Facing the dual suns

Red-hot embers
Angry orbs
Foreboding from afar
Heaven itself will fall down

Prompt: Flarf Poem.

Ten Thousand Sacrifices

Anyone who enters the forest
A crystal tree shines
Over molten cauldron
A terrifying experiment

Crossing the stream
The water turbid and impure
Along the river banks
Muddy water dammed up

The winds hushed
The clouds were scattered
Wildernesses, marshy lands
Fire gushing out of volcanoes

Captured in molten glass
And frozen in time
Performing ten thousand sacrifices
Buddha seated with legs crossed

Prompt: Petit Récapitul Portatif. The poem consists of 10 lines total, in a 3-3-3-1 stanza distribution. Each line is 9 syllables long. No meter is required. The lines do not rhyme. After each three-line stanza comes a list, in parentheses, of three words taken from one of each of the lines in the preceding stanza. The poem is dated and addressed to a specific person (someone you know or someone you don’t). Start with a random Wikipedia article. The first line in your poem will correspond to the first random article you see, the second to the second, and so on for all ten lines. You may replace up to two of your random articles with either a new random article or an article one click away from the original. You may interpret “correspond to” however you choose. You can quote the article, paraphrase it, comment on it, take impressionistic inspiration from it, or what have you. If you so choose, hyperlink each line—or the list word taken from it—to the corresponding article.

October 23, Springfield, Nova Scotia
for Dougald MacPherson

Ginga Sengoku Gun Yuuden Rai
Event, morning session, butterfly
Born to speed, trigger trail, destiny

(Sengoku, session, destiny)

A tournament was held in July
Was based at the town of Devonport
John Knox, Black Watch Ross and Scottish Horse

(Tournament, Davenport, horse)

Submarines, experimental boats
Finishing seventh in the event:
Khuiqer, mysterious Egyptian king

(Submarines, seventh, king)

Imperative for global progress

Prompt: Sonnet. Write a sonnet sourced from lines found in newspaper articles. You may choose your own sonnet type and should feel free to be creative with the rules.

Source Text: The New York Times, April 17, 2017

Beyond that vast hills, endless lands and plains
Beyond that vast hills, wild valleys and rivers
Old land, wild land, where ancient custom reigns
Ancient laws spoken by elder lawgivers

Enchanted time and magic never quelled
When you forget how good I was to you
Desires not contained and barely held
Where are you? Who did it? And is it true?

Beyond that vast hills, how far does it go?
Beyond that vast hills, to infinity or further?
Old land, wild land, alas, I do not know
Where are you? Tell me, what is the answer?

In my own city, I’m a refugee
Old land, prison, I know I hold the key