Maybe thinking about found poems brings more of them to the surface!

Earlier this week I received an email from my friend Beau Cutts, a fellow poet who big claim to fame is that he was 2006 Georgia Poet of the Year. He was writing to me in situ on a beach in north Florida and, knowing I couldn't be there to share in the scene -- breathe that salty Atlantic air, he tried to deliver it to me via my cell phone. As I read his prose, I DID feel like I was there and I realized his evocative words were a found poem. So I copied the text into a word document and played with the line breaks. Here's what I uncovered:

Notes from My Last Visit Seaside,
Atlantic Beach, the Afternoon before
Next Day's Travel Home:


Farewell, Mighty North Atlantic Ocean
whose nearest wetness touches the sand
a mere 15 feet from me toes.
I sit at the base of a portable lifeguard stand,
said savior not on duty.

High tide approaches.
Sandpipers are walking fast,
looking for wet morsels as waves
become spent, their remaining
foams sliding seaward.

Wind NE 8-10 knots.
Waves 2-4 feet.
Five teenage boys are out
nearly 100 yards, pausing
on their boards, hoping,
but good-riding waves
are elsewhere today.

A moment of perfume,
so I look up from my notebook
to see, directly upwind, a twenty-something
in black bikini walk by.

On the beach mid-afternoon:
Young local moms, with pre-school kids
in tow. Plus small clumps of chatty teens
and occasional solitary white-haired walkers,
their grace of movement gone
but not their memories
and determination to walk and walk.

Whoa! That wave, sloshed by the gravity
of the nearest star and nearest moon,
stopped 20 inches from me dry feet.

A cargo ship, heading out,
was visible a few minutes ago;
now the rounding bulge
of Mother Earth blocks my view.


On a sand dune behind me,
the heads of sea oats bob to the SW.

And there is the mild roar of white-crested
waves coming ashore here and to the south
and north all along the beach, a pleasant,
yet restless din that on Earth
passes for the sound of eternity.

***

With a little fiddling, I think Mr. Cutts may have himself quite the found poem!

Found poems, like basil, really add spice to life!

Anyone else find one recently?

Hi, Ms. Neph/Eve -- Thanks for thinking further about this in a different way. I think every "found" poem I've uncovered I've sent back to the writer, saying, here's a poem. I take the original, work with lines, form, and give it back in return. I'd never think of it as MY poem. They're just treats we run across if our ears are tuned.

On the other hand, a few lines in a found poem might stir a new one that's completely mine, in which case, I'll amend "with a line from So-and-So.

My recollection is that Annie Dillard;s were all newspaper stories ... billboards ... ads, etc. I'll have to check if I can find the book.

I suspect that many people take some text and make some line breaks and think -- voila! I've written a poem! But it don't work quite like that. That's too facile. A really good found poem is a rarity!

So, in conclusion, yes, Mr. Cutts' got his enail "found" poem back and greatly enjoyed it packaged up in poetic form. You should hear him talk...just like those lines but with that Georgia accent. The southern storyteller in him. And the poet!

In fact, another poet-friend sent an email today prefacing some photos on the Net of geezers in their glory. Ron's email ended up looking like this:

Think
an inspiration has come
to me.
The first one in quite a while.

We should create
a "League of Elder Justice"
to add a smile to "pay back."
Any of you geezers want me to send you
a membership card?

The price of membership is
one, loud, belly laugh a day,
thinking of the look on the youngins faces
when they eventually see us
on some street corner,
doing our hysterical thing.

I think I might follow
in the footsteps
of the bearded guy
with the sun glasses.
Maybe we should hold
a convention somewhere.

Just a thought,
The old and grizzled Bailey

***
A nice little sweet to chew on ... a surprise.

I also just like the idea that poems are everywhere!