Last Tuesday I blogged about found poems, and I promised to share my favorite.
I was reading an article about The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck that quoted this passage. I thought, “You know, that would make a great poem.” So I worked with it. The only thing I did was to create the line breaks. Not a word or punctuation mark has been altered.
(From “The Grapes of Wrath”) “The cars of the migrant people crawled out of the side roads onto the great cross-country highway, and they took the migrant way to the West.
And because they were lonely and perplexed,
because they had all come from a place of sadness
and worry and defeat,
and because they were all going to a mysterious new place,
a strange thing happened:
the twenty families became one family,
the children were the children of all.
The loss of home became one loss,
and the golden time in the West was one dream.”
This ‘poem’ uses many poetic devices, which I may discuss at a later date.
I hope you agree with me about it being poetic!
Great idea. Making it a poem gave it a whole new “voice” and meaning to me. I can’t wait to try this on some of my favorite works. love your blogging!
Thanks Sandra. Always great to hear from you.
Just goes to show that poets ARE writers!
And Vice-versa, Freeda!
This is really beautiful. I don’t know how to ‘find’ poems, but I love this one you found.
I agree. That passage is a found poem. Thanks for sharing.