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(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 even 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 materiel 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!

Plus, if you want to get all my poems (and only the poems) emailed to you for freeee as they hit the blog, enter your email address in the box below then click subscribe!

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Athlete of cross work

Lover of up-and-down

Word wonder 2 briefly

Not Done

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April is National Poetry Month, and this year I'm celebrating the season with a small poetry/art journal project with a Japanese-inspired theme I'm calling "30 Days of Kimono." The idea came to me when I visited the Albuquerque Art and History Museum with my writer's group several weeks ago. The museum was hosting a special exhibition on Japanese Art Deco, and because I've always been a huge fan of Japanese style, culture, and literature, it seemed like a good time to do something with all that inspiration!

Rather than restricting myself to just poetry, I'm using a variety of methods, mediums, and digital sites, including Polyvore, where I made the kimono pictured above, as well as a Pinterest board. To keep all my ideas in one place, I've chosen to use a Moleskine Cahier Kraft blank notebook, which means I can decorate the cover too (still a bit of a work-in-progress...):


On the inside I'm writing down my poetry thoughts,  found poetry snippets, and sketch ideas for larger paintings:


I'm also pasting in drawings made on other types of paper. For instance, the sketch below is made on a Japanese paper I can't describe very well other than to say it's slick on one side, rough on the other (I don't know if it's rice paper--sorry!). I used a pen cut from a piece of bamboo, Black Magic ink, and a little watercolor, then cut it into a kimono-ish shape. The pattern was based on my recent visit to New York and Central Park.


One of the most enjoyable parts of this project has been my research; any excuse to go to the library and immerse myself in good books is fine with me. Besides losing myself in several gardening books covering Zen gardens and tea houses, my favorite find was a classic, The Book of Kimono by Norio Yamanaka. Everything you'd ever want to know about the history, making, and wearing of kimono is in this comprehensive little book. And believe me, there is a lot to know about wearing a kimono--about 36 actions just to get into "the thing," (which is all the word "kimono" really means: "a thing to wear") and half of those include hand-sewing, my most detested task on earth. Then of course there's the good behavior required to not crush or ruin the kimono, including never letting your back touch the back of a chair or car seat. Reminds me of when my mother forced me to wear scratchy nylon dotted Swiss on Sundays--don't move! Don't eat! Don't breathe! Which was perfectly expressed in this bit of found poetry I took from various lines of my magazine cut-outs:
Tip of the Day: Whether it's National Poetry Month of National Novel Writing Month, why not choose a theme or subject you've always wanted to know more about but never really had the time to explore? Not only could it start an entire new direction for your creativity, but it could also help give you that special edge to stand out from the crowd.

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As writers we are always looking for new inspirations and materials for research.
Earlier this year I was invited by Kim Morrissey, Canadian Poet and Playwright, to participate in a 'Found' poetry project to commemorate four hundred years of the Quaker Peace Testimonies.
Found poetry uses the actual words and phrases in original historical documents to capture the essence of the text. The aim is to encourage the reader  to go back and read the text again. This is a very inspiring and fresh way to approach poetry and I thoroughly recommend it. Also history is a great passion of mine and so any excuse to go and read original texts is very welcome.

We met in the library of Friends' House, the well known Quaker centre in Euston to study material for our poems. This is a wonderful place to read and study, silent as libraries used to be in my childhood, with just the ticking of a grandfather clock in the background.
Kim asked me to produce a poem from a pamphlet, 'The Boy, The Bayonet and The Bible,' written in 1912 protesting about the rise of militarism in our schools. "I want a long poem," she said her eyes twinkling at me.
 We were preparing for a reading later that month at Friends' House. I therefore managed to write a two page poem called, 'We do not close our eyes'.

However I was also preparing for a trip to the Crimea at that time and asked if there was any relevant material. The librarian, David Irving, found a book called, Sleigh Ride to Russia, which was an account of a Quaker delegation to the Czar of Russia in January 1854 to try to avert the Crimean War. I was intending to write a series of poems, A Crimean Diary, around my visit and now I had some wonderful material to start me off.
I therefore wrote a poem, 'Letters home from Russia', using material found in the letters home quoted in the book.