Found poetry is a type of poetry created by taking words, phrases, and sometimes whole passages from other sources and reframing them as poetry by making changes in spacing and/or lines (and consequently meaning), or by altering the text by additions and/or deletions. The resulting poem can be defined as either treated: changed in a profound and systematic manner; or untreated: virtually unchanged from the order, syntax and meaning of the original.

Comparisons and predecessors

Franze Stenzel describes the Dadaism movement with its readymade philosophy as a predecessor for the practice that later became found poetry. Dadaists like Duchamp placed everyday practical objects in an environment that was aesthetic and in so doing called into question that object as art, the observer, the aesthetic environment and the definition of what is art.

Stylistically, found poetry is similar to the visual art

Art

Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....

 of "appropriation" in which two- and three-dimensional art is created from recycled items, giving ordinary/commercial things new meaning when put within a new context in unexpected combinations or juxtapositions.

Examples

An example of found poetry appeared in William Whewell

William Whewell

William Whewell was an English polymath, scientist, Anglican priest, philosopher, theologian, and historian of science. He was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge.-Life and career:Whewell was born in Lancaster...

's "An Elementary Treatise on Mechanics":

Hence no force, however great,

can stretch a cord, however fine,

into a horizontal line

which is accurately straight.

In 2003, Slate

Slate (magazine)

Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...

writer Hart Seely found poetry in the speeches and news briefings of Donald Rumsfeld

Donald Rumsfeld

Donald Henry Rumsfeld is an American politician and businessman. Rumsfeld served as the 13th Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford, and as the 21st Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush. He is both the youngest and the oldest person to...

. In a transcript of a Department of Defense news briefing from February 12, 2002, Rumsfeld ruminated on "The Unknown":

As we know,

There are known knowns.

There are things we know we know.

We also know

There are known unknowns.

That is to say

We know there are some things

We do not know.

But there are also unknown unknowns,

The ones we don't know

We don't know.

Hart Seely published Rumsfeld's poetry in the book, Pieces of Intelligence: The Existential Poetry of Donald H. Rumsfeld (2003). American composer Phil Kline

Phil Kline

Phil Kline is an American composer. After graduating from Columbia University with a degree in English Literature, he formed the New York No Wave band The Del-Byzanteens in the early 1980s with filmmaker Jim Jarmusch and painter James Nares, collaborated with photographer Nan Goldin on the...

 set Rumsfeld's lyrics to music in "Rumsfeld's Songs", a song cycle

Song cycle

A song cycle is a group of songs designed to be performed in a sequence as a single entity. As a rule, all of the songs are by the same composer and often use words from the same poet or lyricist. Unification can be achieved by a narrative or a persona common to the songs, or even, as in Schumann's...

 released on Zippo Songs (2004). Pianist Bryant Kong also used Rumsfeld's lyrics on his release "Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld".

In July 2009, US talkshow host Conan O'Brien

Conan O'Brien

Conan Christopher O'Brien is an American television host, comedian, writer, producer and performer. Since November 2010 he has hosted Conan, a late-night talk show that airs on the American cable television station TBS....

 twice asked actor William Shatner

William Shatner

William Alan Shatner is a Canadian actor, musician, recording artist, and author. He gained worldwide fame and became a cultural icon for his portrayal of James T...

 to deliver the written words of former Alaskan Governor and Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin

Sarah Louise Palin is an American politician, commentator and author. As the Republican Party nominee for Vice President in the 2008 presidential election, she was the first Alaskan on the national ticket of a major party and first Republican woman nominated for the vice-presidency.She was...

 in the style of beat poetry. Shatner performed Palin's Farewell Speech on July 27, 2009, and several of her "Tweets" on 29 July, 2009, during The Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien. Shatner was supported by a bongo

Bongo drum

Bongo or bongos are a Cuban percussion instrument consisting of a pair of single-headed, open-ended drums attached to each other. The drums are of different size: the larger drum is called in Spanish the hembra and the smaller the macho...

 player and double-bassist.

Another well known example of a public figure's speech being converted into found poetry was the baseball play calls of Phil Rizzuto

Phil Rizzuto

Philip Francis Rizzuto , nicknamed "The Scooter", was an American Major League Baseball shortstop. He spent his entire 13-year baseball career for the New York Yankees...

. Rizzuto was the announcer for the New York Yankees baseball team for some 40 years, and some of his at times rambling or disjointed commentary was collected and reformatted by Hart Seely and Tom Peyer into a collection of Rizzuto's found poetry. An example is Rizzuto's thoughts on the death of Yankees catcher Thurmon Munson in an airplane crash:

"The Man in the Moon"

The Yankees have had a traumatic four days.

Actually five days.

That terrible crash with Thurman Munson.

To go through all that agony,

And then today,

You and I along with the rest of the team

Flew to Canton for the services,

And the family...

Very upset.

You know, it might,

It might sound a little corny.

But we have the most beautiful full moon tonight.

And the crowd,

Enjoying whatever is going on right now.

They say it might sound corny,

But to me it's like some kind of a,

Like an omen.

Both the moon and Thurman Munson,

Both ascending up into heaven.

I just can't get it out of my mind.

I just saw the full moon,

And it just reminded me of Thurman Munson,

And that's it.

A quarterly online literary journal devoted to found poetry, The Found Poetry Review, debuted in 2011. The inaugural issue featured traditional centos

Cento (poetry)

A cento is a poetical work wholly composed of verses or passages taken from other authors; only disposed in a new form or order.- History :The term comes from the Latin cento, a cloak made of patches; and that from the Greek κέντρων. The Roman soldiers used these centones, or old stuffs patched...

 and poems taken from textbooks, Marcel Duchamp

Marcel Duchamp

Marcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...

 paintings, Wikipedia articles, Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman is a DC Comics superheroine created by William Moulton Marston. She first appeared in All Star Comics #8 . The Wonder Woman title has been published by DC Comics almost continuously except for a brief hiatus in 1986....

comics and more.