found poems a

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

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

* Copy This Password *

* Type Or Paste Password Here *

2,921 Spam Comments Blocked so far by Spam Free Wordpress

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>