Found Poetry

I have always been fascinated by the concept of found poetry.  I love the serendipitous nature of  stumbling across words and creating an entirely new and different story.  It also helps if you have some good text to start with otherwise, who knows what you might end up with, right?

For these gold and white color journal pages, I got out my stash of loose text pages (removed from various altered books over the years) and started glancing through the lines to see what popped out.  At the back of my mind, I knew I would be creating this poem for someone who had recently lost her husband.  I wanted the poem to acknowledge her loss but at the same time offer hope.

I'm not sure I could have planned this any better.  After discarding only a few pages, I settled on these two.  Here is the poem that emerged:

 You had a strange uneasiness.

You lose speed.  You sink--afraid you may drift like some cosmic accident that swallows you up.

In the heart of isolation, memories were invisible riches.

Marvel at the happiness!

I went to Pinterest to get ideas for how to block off the remaining text.  There are some really amazing found poetry pieces posted on Pinterest!  To bring the gold and white palette to my pages, I decided to block the remaining text by painting over the words with gold acrylic.  I actually like that you can still see the text beneath.

I mistakenly cut the pages too short and ended up having to mount them onto watercolor paper sized to 4" x 8".  Even though the watercolor paper was white (also part of the color palette), the contrast was too stark.  I took the leftover gold paint and played with mark-making.  These designs were made with a plastic cap and Q-tip.