Found poetry can be as profound as original, traditional poetry. The difference? The words are found in existing texts, then edited and arranged in new, poetic ways by the poet.

Confused? No worries. Read this excerpt from Poets.org:

Found poems take existing texts and refashion them, reorder them, and present them as poems. The literary equivalent of a collage, found poetry is often made from newspaper articles, street signs, graffiti, speeches, letters, or even other poems.

A pure found poem consists exclusively of outside texts: the words of the poem remain as they were found, with few additions or omissions. Decisions of form, such as where to break a line, are left to the poet.

Here are some sample found poems from previous classes and a few online sources.

Enjoy!