Friday, October 14, 2016

Found Poetry - family

(click to see the found poem in all its found glory)
family
(a found poem)
by
Greg Pincus

Perhaps you like a puzzle even if it is a puzzle
that does not have an answer.

The mystery
is this, "How did
the answer
have such history?"

Perhaps you will come up with an answer.


One of the unexpected highlights of the Poetry Camp (for Adults) was the craft/found poem event run by poet/artist/inspire-er Robyn Hood Black the night before the conference at Bellingham's Village Books. If you know me, you know that while I'm a huge fan of arts and crafts and such as a concept... actually doing them isn't always tops on my list. But there I was, sitting at a table along with Bob Raczka, Peg Cheng, and Brenda Olson chatting, glue-ing, picking words, laughing, and having a blast.

I felt lucky: my source material included that rather amazing sentence that beings my poem. It also had a mystery/history rhyme I liked AND included the word "conchologists" which I was not able to fit into the poem (and had never heard before). You can see a bunch of the poems and read more about the conference at Peg Cheng's wonderful post about the whole event. Did I mention the whole thing was a blast? Good.

Today is Poetry Friday here in the blogosphere, and you can see the roundup of this week's posts over at fellow-Poetry-Camper Irene Latham's blog. Check it out!

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12 comments:

Jane @ www.raincitylibrarian.ca said...

One of the things I love about working with young children is that so many of them haven't yet learned to doubt themselves or their abilities. I've convinced myself that I'm not artistic, and that I've got no ability for arts and crafts, whereas most children will happily plunge into just about any project, simply because it looks fun! :)

Robyn Hood Black said...

Your post makes my day today, Greg! I knew you all were having fun at the "raucus" table - okay, "lively" table - but I didn't get a chance to read your poem. Wow! That's pretty amazing for a flash card about a shell. Thanks for sharing, and glad you enjoyed making a creative mess to create it. :0)

Greg Pincus said...

We were ebullient, it's true, but that was a byproduct of the event, I think, and of you urging us to do this. I was pretty happy with the poem, I admit, but more than that, it was just plain fun.

Lee Wind, M.Ed. said...

Okay, that's really cool. And it made me think of this remarkable artist who carves books to reveal a visual poetry as well http://scbwi.blogspot.com/2016/09/brian-dettmers-ted-talk-old-books.html
thanks for sharing, Greg!

Peg Cheng said...

I'm still amazed at how you came up with such a pithy poem about family through your card about a shell. Awesome poem, Greg! And thanks for the shout-out to our table ("How did you get so far ahead of me?! Slow down!") and to my blog post. It was an absolute BLAST crafting with you, Brenda, and Bob.

Margaret Simon said...

Love this poem and the activity that inspired it. I am getting a snippet of the Poetry Camp through posts, but sure wish I could have been there.

Irene Latham said...

Greg, what a treasure you found on that conch-y card! Thanks for sharing it here. Great to meet you in Bellingham!

Laurie L Young said...

Very cool. Thanks for sharing.

Tabatha said...

There's a lot to be said a) for diving in and making messes and b) for getting different parts of your brain going at once. I can see why you enjoyed it (and the company).

Brenda at FriendlyFairyTales said...

Arts and crafts combined with poetry. Yum!

April Halprin Wayland said...

Unforgettable! Having that much fun with words, stamps, color and poets has GOT to be illegal.

Charles Waters said...

What a fun exercise. Robyn is a peach of a human. Love the poem as well.