Found Poetry

 by Ashley Lister

 One writing exercise that I’ve never used in class works around the concept of ‘found poetry.’

Charles Saatchi has

told a court he has

"no proof"

his ex-wife Nigella Lawson

ever took drugs –

despite an email he sent

claiming she was

"off her head".

He was giving evidence

at the trial

of the couple's assistants

Francesca and Elisabetta Grillo who

deny

fraudulently

using their employers'

credit cards.

The Grillos' defence

has claimed the sisters

were allowed to spend 

by Ms Lawson

to cover her 

use of drugs.

Addressing the Grillos'

defence counsel

Mr Saatchi said: "I have

no proof."

Art dealer

Mr Saatchi

told defence barrister

Anthony Metzer QC

at Isleworth Crown Court: "I have

never,

never

seen any evidence of Nigella

taking any drug

whatsoever."

This story originally appeared on the following link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-25154201

The concept of found poetry is to take an existing text, a transcript of conversation, an example text from a different genre or, as here, a new story: and use line breaks to give it the appearance of a poem.

From there, the poem is then likely to be constructed by the reader as a poem, rather than a piece of news. Here’s another one I constructed from an email that may or may not have been spam. It discusses suspicious activity on my Barclays Bank account however, because I don’t have a Barclays Bank account, I suspect it might not be entirely legitimate.

We Have Observed Frequently Login Attempts

Dear Customer, We

recently have determined

that different computers

have logged in

your Barclays
account, and

multiple password

failures were

present before

the logons.

Do not

ignore this

message is

for your security.

For your security

we have temporary

suspended

your account.
Please

download the document

attached to this

email and fill

carefully.

If you do

not restore your

account within 24

hours,

we will be forced to

suspend
your account

indefinitely,

as it may have been

used

for fraudulent

purposes.

We apologize for

any

inconvenience.

It’s not original. It’s arguable as to whether or not it’s really poetry. But it’s a fun exercise – particularly for those who are feeling uninspired. If you have access to a news story or a block of text, try it and see if you can “find” some poetry in the commonplace of regular text.

As always, if you want to share your work in the comments box below, it would be fun to see what you’ve done with this one.