Found Poetry

Found Poem

A found poem is a poem created from a passage within the context of the piece you’re reading. Use the following steps to create a poem from the novel that not only demonstrates the emotions and information of the actual text, but also integrates something that has stood out to you or expresses your feelings about the story.

Directions:

Select 5-10 sentences that stood out to you, or are particularly meaningful to you.
Write down the sentences. I know this takes some time, but you’ll see why I ask you to do this.
Re-read the sentences and highlight, circle, or underline details, words and phrases that you find particularly powerful, moving, or interesting.
On another sheet of paper, take these details, words, and phrases that you marked, keeping them in the order you found them.
Make minor changes as you go to create your poem. You can change punctuation and make little changes to the words to make them fit together (such as tenses, possessives, plurals, capitalizations, etc.).
Now read through the poem you’ve fit together. You can add a few words here or there, but don’t exceed two to five added words total!
You can then write the poem out in disjointed fashion, typing out some lines bigger than others, with different fonts, colors added as desired, etc.
At the bottom of your newly created poem, cite the page numbers where you took your poem from.