http://www.flickr.com/photos/craigb6/2195200509/
The Bishop's Mantle
Now to be called a scholar
wearing the bishop's mantle,
one must differentiate
what you know and what you don't.
God bless my Ipod.
Copyright 2008 JO Janoski
This is called a "found" poem. It's a workshop exercise. I decided on a specific form (Dodoitsu) simply to get a handle on it.
Hi, Jo... I admit to being ignorant of most poetic forms, the 'found' poem being no exception. I did try to research it a little, however, and Wikipedia defines it as "the rearrangement of words, phrases, and sometimes whole passages that are taken from other sources and reframed as poetry by changes in spacing and/or lines (and consequently meaning), or by altering the text by additions and/or deletions."
ReplyDeleteMy question is, without a knowledge of unreferenced material, how is the reader supposed to evaluate the meaning of the selected words or phrases? Is it implicit within the words or is an external knowledge of them important?
Just wondering...
Bob, I would say just take the words at face value and only in bits and pieces. Put those chunks together to make something entirely your own. No reference or similarity to the original item is necessary. No one will ever really know where you got it from and how that original item influenced you. You could explain it, if you wanted, but I haven't seen anyone do it so far.
ReplyDeletei'm with you jo... it is just a little slice of beauty made out of the ordinary... it shouldn't have to be validated or even make sense... i guess....
ReplyDelete