Found poetry is a type of poetry created by taking words, phrases, and sometimes whole passages from other sources and reframing them as poetry by making changes in spacing and/or lines (and consequently meaning), or by altering the text by additions and/or deletions. The resulting poem can be defined as either treated: changed in a profound and systematic manner; or untreated: virtually unchanged from the order, syntax and meaning of the original. (Wikipedia)
During an inspiring writing date yesterday, my friend Crystal introduced me to the poetry of Robert Creeley. If you’re familiar with his work, you can probably imagine how taken I was, and I vowed to read his collected works cover to cover as soon as the time to do so presented itself. In the meantime, we waxed poetic about living and writing—creating yourself as opposed to finding yourself, and I flipped through the book, assembling this found poem. The twelve stanzas are pulled from twelve different poems, and my title is an amalgam of some of theirs. Hope it resonates with Creeley fans and unfamiliars alike.
All generality? There is
no one here but words,
no thing but echoes.
No harm in
the emotional
nor in remembering all
you can or want to.
Say yes to the wasted
empty places. The guesses
to other preoccupations—
with the future, with
when I was young—
Neither one nor two
but a mixture
walks here
in me-
I feel the mark of one
who has been born and grown
She was young,
she was old,
she was small
She was tall with
a movement of legs and hooves
upon a timeless sand.
Inside You would also be tall,
more tall, more beautiful.
I get
a lot
of writing done—
all form derived
from kind,
built
with that in mind.
