Writer’s Workshops: Found Poems

Is it plagiarism when you use a found poem?
I’ve always wondered if I was breaking some copyright law, but I’ve learned a couple of things from taking poetry workshops, and I'll share them here with you.
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A found poem is one where you find words to use to build your poem or specifically use words for your poem but re-arrange them. In other words, a found poem is something that was not intended to be a poem but was made into one. You’re either faithful to the words or phrases and use them as they are, or you’re unfaithful and change the order to get to a new meaning. Think of it as a collage of words.

One way to write a found poem is to randomly choose words from a dictionary.
Another way is to use street signs or the titles of books or songs to make your poem.
You can also choose phrases for your poem.
You don’t have to use the words exactly as you find them; you can switch them around. If you do use them in order, it is important to cite the source where you found them. That way, you are not plagiarizing. For example, if I wanted to use song lyrics as part of my poem, I would need to say who sang them. "Live and Let Die" should be cited at the end of my poem as coming from Paul McCartney, and so on.

Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

As an exercise, make an attempt at a found poem using random words from a book you’re reading. Just go through a chapter or two and pick out ten words. Then, you can decide if you want to add more words or use what you found.

Here’s my attempt from a teacher's book on reading:
step     table    fan       graphics          words  produce           fluently           cross            point    chips

Reading
fanning words
produce
fluent graphics
crossing steps
on pointed chips
​left on table
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After deciding where I wanted my words to fit, I added extra "filler" words to complete the found poem. I also changed the structure of some words to fit the meaning I wanted to convey about reading. Since I didn’t use the words in a set order from the book, I don’t have to cite it, but if I used any of them as phrases taken directly from the book, I would have had to cite it.

Have a Found Poem to share?