Exploring Found Poetry: Creative Expression with Limits

Found poetry is the visual art of creating a poem using fragments of printed words culled from old books, magazine articles, pamphlets- any printed matter, really. I liken its format to creating a painting with a limited color palette-for example using only black, white and burnt Sienna. The painter is free to combine the three paints in any manner, but cannot introduce another hue. Likewise, in found poetry the poet is restricted to using only the words cut out from their sources in front of her.

Because of these limits writing found poetry is challenging. It asks me to consider what I want to say, and then explore how to say it using the available phrases and words. I made a few of these poems in the Visual Poetry workshop. For today’s poem I took the concept a small step further, limiting myself to using only the words I removed from the Desiderata while creating the Erasure Poem I posted last week.

This poem, Supplication, is presented in the explosion book format. Paired with its erasure poem parent, they loosely form a conversation.

Supplication

God 
be gentle with
lessor persons than Yourself.
Everywhere life is full of 
Your labors and aspirations.
Do not become vain or bitter,
Enjoy Your achievements.
The things of youth,
its sham,
is trickery.
Take kindly to ignorant persons.
They too have broken dreams, fatigue
And loneliness.
Go placidly.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.
                            
                                           -Julianna Paradisi 2025