I am endlessly fascinated by the genre of found poems. I first learned about them while studying my masters in creative arts at university and have since then developed an eye for the found poem, a series of prose words I pluck from a text and render as a poem. They are fun to discover and fun to share. Here are some for starters:
Sonnet on Pushkin
We sit in our box seat, in the dark, straining
to follow truth’s endless tricks and costume changes.
Truth – that most famous and coveted actor
En travesti of the human comedy.
With his death Pushkin lures us to a place
where everything we know and feel sure of
suddenly seems decayed beyond recognition,
like goods long stored in a crumbling warehouse.
A place where knowledge seems to shade into blackness.
A place where the margin dividing cause from effect,
once believed to be narrow and richly explored,
becomes a boundless desert of inscrutable hieroglyphs,
deceptive shadows, indistinct presences, mirages and traps.
Poetry’s lesson. Mystery’s lesson. Lessons of the sacred.
(found in Serena Vitale’s text Pushkin’s Button )
Or a Poem
The Spanish American
is unfortunately rather
a man of words
than action…
…mental inertia
that has led them to suffer
for centuries under the oppression
of political abuse…
…a servant, guilty of having dropped a plate or glass
will invariably say
‘se cayo’ (it fell)…
he will never say, ‘I dropped it.’
Nothing is ever made to happen.
it just ‘happens’
whether it be an epidemic
or a revolution.
I found this poem in the stock market theorist, RN Elliott’s Masterworks edited by Robert Prechter Jr. p43
The Jadeite Necklace
Barbara stay in Marco Polo Suite,
upstair,
and then she come down to shop.
She love bangle.
She love their song,
love the clink.
When she stay at Marco Polo
she order Chinese musicians
to play at dinner.
Sometimes she dress in Imperial Dragon robe
and wear beautiful jadeite necklace
her father give her for wedding number one.
All time,
even when she go on junk trip in harbour,
she wear that necklace.
Extract of interview with Jimmy Chow in Poor Little Rich Girl byC David Heymann
Online Master
Tim, Thanks for the interest. My tai chi
is First Generation teaching from China.
While it does lead to serenity in
the mind, it can only do so after
quite a bit of practice. What I’m saying
is, there is quite a bit of sweat involved in
learning (real) Tai Chi. We build a foundation
of stretching and strengthening the muscles
and extremities to improve balance
and circulation. This is turn leads to
confidence, health, and long life. Western thought
has turned Tai Chi into a more mystical
practice, seen by westerners to be a way
to connect with the energy and peace
of the universe. This is not so in China.
To practice Zen, go to a monastery.
The name “Taijiquan” in Chinese translates
to “Grand Ultimate Fist”. Tai Chi is
and always has been a martial art.
That is the way I was taught it, that is the way
I teach it. While we practice the form slowly
in “tai chi time”, the applications
in real time are swift and exact. To quote
the Tai Chi Classics, “Do not worry
about speed or power. When the moment
needs it, there will be no fear of slip
or falter.” That being said, the practice
of Tai Chi is addicting. The body
begins to ache and bog down from lack of
practice. After a while, it is not a chore
to practice mid-week, it becomes a necessity.
As the body’s extremities begin
to “glob up” with stale Chi and stagnant
nutrients, it remembers Tai Chi from
Saturday morning and begs to be renewed.
The renewal circulates Chi, blood and
oxygen to the far reaches of our
extremities, filling them with spritely
quickness and life. Who hasn’t noticed
the curious feeling an hour or so
after class when you notice your body
feels alive, fresh and renewed?
This is what Tai Chi does.
This was found in a comment by person, presumably a teacher, named ‘junbao’ on an online forum