"I want to use this world rather than my own invention."
- Ellsworth Kelly, The Painter's Eye
 
"Found" poems are essentially built from bits of broken text.  The poems are original as poems; their themes and their orderings are invented.  Their sentences are not.  Words can be dropped but not added.  In the course of composing such poems, the author's intentions are usually the first to "go."  A nineteenth century Russian memoir of hunting and natural history yields a poem about love and death.  A book of nineteenth century oceanographic data yields a poem about seeing.  This is editing at its extreme:  writing without composing.
 

THE ASSIGNMENT:
You are to develop a found poem which has the following required elements:
- at least 20 lines
- at least one line demonstrating alliteration
- a clear, central tone
- at least two figurative images
- at least two sensory images
 
YOU MUST ONLY WORK FROM THE TEXT OF A FAREWELL TO ARMS!

This is worth a possible 25 points.

PAGE LAST UPDATED 19 FEBRUARY 2001