Welcome to the first workshop of 2015! *confetti*

Hi, I'm PinkyMcCoversong. You can call me Emily. I write all kinds of poetry, but one of my favorite styles is found poetry. So, for the next few weeks, I'll be guiding you through the world of found poetry. Using found poetry techniques is not only one of my favorite ways to write, but it's also a way to give yourself a creative kick in the butt when you're having a hard time revving those engines.

This workshop might be a bit different from previous workshops because 1. there's a LOT to be had in found poetry and I want to give you a taste of a few different methods and 2. I'm hoping that each participant can send us three to six different pieces based on three different featured methods, which I'll describe below.

Erasure How-To is now up! 
Cut-Up & Remix How-To is now up!
Cento How-To is now up!

Here's how we're gonna do this thang:

• You have until March 1st (when I'll post the first of the how-to journals) to familiarize yourself with the not-required-but-totally-fun-and-useful-recommended reading, as outlined below. You can also read while we write, but it's good to get ahead!
• There will be THREE how-to journals (one for each of the methods briefly outlined below) over the course of two weeks.
  
• After each how-to journal, a folder will open for that method. Place the piece(s) you'd like workshopped into the correct folder. (Remember, you learned things, so put your pieces in the correct folders!
  
• Everybody critiques everyone! I really want to see you guys interacting on each other's pieces.
  
• At the end of the month, I'll post a round-up with feedback on some of the submitted pieces from each category.
  
• -500000 for submitting poetry that IS NOT FOUND.

So. What is found poetry?

Found poetry, in its many forms, uses already existing text (or source texts) to create brand new poetic narratives. There are a few basic types of found poetry from which every other style seems to originate. Over the course of the workshop, we'll be doing in-depth studies of each of three methods, which I'll briefly outline below, with some recommended reading. (Seriously, read! Reading is so good. And fun. And helpful! Especially when trying something new!)

1. Erasure

This is possibly the most common type of found poetry, or at least the most visible. Erasure poetry (sometimes called blackout or whiteout) is created when the author literally erases certain words of a source text, leaving the remaining words and phrases to create something new. You can do this visually, with editing software on your computer or with a sharpie or White-Out on a book/photocopy. Or, you can just write out the words and phrases that you keep into a new document, adding or subtracting punctuation and changing capitalizations, creating new stanza breaks, etc., as long as the words appear in the same order that they appeared in the original text.


Recommended offsite reading:

• Nets by Jen Bervin [free excerpt]
  
• Newspaper Blackout Poetry by Austin Kleon
  
• Celebrity Free Verse Series at Silver Birch Press' Blog [free online!]
  
• Jenni B. Baker's Erasing Infinite Project [free online!]

2. Cut-up/Remix

Cut up and remix are two sides of the same coin. While cut-up is sometimes more literal in that poets will take scissors to a text and pull cut out words and phrases at random to take a new text, remix implies a more strategic approach, in which a poet simply uses source material as a limited palette with which to create a new piece. You can use any word that appears in the source text, but you don't have to use the words in the order that they appear, like you do with erasure.

Recommended offsite reading:

3. Cento 

This is probably the hardest form of found poetry -- and deceptively so. It might seem easy, because a cento is essentially a stack of quotes from other sources. Some poets collect lines from different poems and put them together as a new poem. Some poets might use lines from novels or newspaper articles. The trick is to create a new narrative in YOUR voice using others' lines and quotes. That's where the difficulty comes in.

• Wolf Centos by Simone Muench [ free excerpts excerpts excerpts]
  
• Death Centos by Natalia Porter [free excerpts]
• MxT by Sina Queyras [free excerpt]
• Hooking by Mary Dalton [free excerpt]

Down to Business:

During the first week of workshop, we're going to do erasures! Get your source materials ready! Some of my favorite sources are Teen Vogue, sci fi novels, classic literature, and the local newspaper. What will you use?

Still looking for more info on found poetry? Check out Found Poetry Review, which has pretty much everything you ever needed to know on this artform! And definitely feel free to post comments -- I'll answer all of your questions!

*COPYRIGHT CAVEAT*

When you post your work, if you do any kind of visual presentation, you have to make sure that you black out any text that you are not using as part of your poem. Don't just cross it out, black/white it out completely. You can also use collage elements as part of your presentation, but you also have to use the same rules that would apply to any collage. See this info on collage and copyright. You can also check out the resources on fair use at Found Poetry Review. ALSO, be sure to cite your sources as specifically as possible. For example, if you wrote a poem from a magazine article, cite it the same way you would for a research paper. If you use a book, do the same, and be sure to specify page numbers!