In english class, we did a really interesting poetry writing exercise, it's called writing a found poem. Basically, it's when you take a piece of literature, select words from it, and without changing the order of words, using those words to write a poem. The way we did it, we picked a passage about 100 words, and we were only allowed to add 2 of our own words into the poem.
So the rules go as follows
- The passage must be approximately a maximum of 100 words maximum
- You may pick as many words as you want from it, though preferably don't take more then 3-4 words in a row
- You must keep the words you pick in the order you picked them
example:
The passage
A SMALL THEORY People observe the colors of a day only at its beginnings and ends, but to me it's quite clear that a day merges through a multitude of shades and intonations, with each passing moment.
(i chose the bold words)
I can put them in the order "Small people observe a day", but i can not put this as "eople observe a small day".
- You can change the tense of a word, make a word possessive, or make some changes such as agony to agonized
- You can use punctuation (such as commas) and spacing to make the poem read better
- You can add a total of 2 words into a poem (please indicate which 2 words were added in)
A book floated down the Amper River. A boy jumped in, caught up to it, and held it in his right hand. He grinned. He stood waist-deep in the icy, Decemberish water. "How about a kiss, Saumensch?" he said.
By the next raid, on October 2, she was finished. Only a few dozen pages remained blank andthe book thief was already starting to read over what she'd written. The book was divided intoten parts, all of which were given the title of books or stories and described how each affectedher life.
Often, I wonder what page she was up to when I walked down Himmel Street in the dripping-tap rain, five nights later. I wonder what she was reading when the first bomb dropped fromthe rib cage of a plane.
Personally, I like to imagine her looking briefly at the wall, at Max Vandenburg's tightropecloud, his dripping sun, and the figures walking toward it. Then she looks at the agonizingattempts of her paint-written spelling. I see the Fhrer coming down the basement steps withhis tied-together boxing gloves hanging casually around his neck. And the book thief reads, rereads, and rereads her last sentence, for many hours.
THE BOOK THIEF--LAST LINE I have hated the words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.
