Found poetry

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Found poetry is the rearrangement of words, phrases, and sometimes whole passages that are taken from other sources and reframed as poetry by 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 "treated" (changed in a profound and systematic manner) or "untreated" (conserving virtually the same order, syntax and meaning as in the original) .

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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.

[edit] Examples

The first major example of the extended use of found poetry is Isidore Ducasse's Poesies.[citation needed]

An example of found poetry appeared in William Whewell’s "Middle Treatise on Mechanics"[citation needed]:

"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.[1]

In 2003, Slate found poetry in the speeches and news briefings of Donald Rumsfeld[2]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry
  2. ^ Poetry of D.H. Rumsfeld, Hart Seely, []]Slate (magazine)|Slate Magazine]], 2 April 2003

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