Build-a-Poem (Found poetry experiment)

[Makers]

Follow the steps in order 1-10. Pick the indicated items from the passages above each step. As you progress, write down and combine your selections to create a poem. An example is provided at the end.

Remember:

A prepositional phrase: includes a preposition, a noun, and other modifiers
example: on the roof
A noun phrase: includes a noun and other related words
example: a nice red shirt
A verb phrase: includes a verb and its helping verbs
example: is eating

A dependent clause does not express a complete thought or stand alone, depends on another clause for meaning
example When the president arrives

A simile uses "like or as."

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The pure contralto sings in the organ loft,
The carpenter dresses his plank, the tongue of his foreplane whistles its wild ascending lisp,
The married and unmarried children ride home to their Thanksgiving dinner,
The pilot seizes the king-pin, he heaves down with a strong arm,
The mate stands braced in the whale-boat, lance and harpoon are ready,

The duck-shooter walks by silent and cautious stretches,
The deacons are ordain’d with cross’d hands at the altar,
The spinning-girl retreats and advances to the hum of the big wheel,
The farmer stops by the bars as he walks on a First-day loafe and looks at the oats and rye,
The lunatic is carried at last to the asylum a confirm’d case,

Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

1) Pick out a noun phrase.
6) Pick a prepositional phrase.
7) Pick out a verb phrase (you may modify the verbs.)

“Beauty, the world seemed to say. And as if to prove it (scientifically) wherever he looked at the houses, at the railings, at the antelopes stretching over the palings, beauty sprang instantly. To watch a leaf quivering in the rush of air was an exquisite joy. Up in the sky swallows swooping, swerving, flinging themselves in and out, round and round, yet always with perfect control as if elastics held them; and the flies rising and falling; and the sun spotting now this leaf, now that, in mockery, dazzling it with soft gold in pure good temper; and now again some chime (it might be a motor horn) tinkling divinely on the grass stalks—all of this, calm and reasonable as it was, made out of ordinary things as it was, was the truth now; beauty, that was the truth now. Beauty was everywhere.”

Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

2) Pick out a prepositional phrase.
5) Pick out a noun phrase.

“Oh it was gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh. The trombones crunched redgold under my bed, and behind my gulliver the trumpets three-wise silverflamed, and there by the door the timps rolling through my guts and out again crunched like candy thunder. Oh, it was wonder of wonders. And then, a bird of like rarest spun heavenmetal, or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now, came the violin solo above all the other strings, and those strings were like a cage of silk round my bed. Then flute and oboe bored, like worms of like platinum, into the thick thick toffee gold and silver. I was in such bliss, my brothers.”

Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

3) Pick out a verb phrase. (You may modify the verbs.)
4) Pick out a simile—end sentence.
8) Pick out a noun phrase.

“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

9) Pick out a dependent clause—end sentence.

10) Repeat steps one through nine x1. Once finished, add a title and line breaks if you wish.


Example:

The pure contralto
Up in the sky
Crunched
Like a cage
Of silk round my bed.
Soft gold at the alter
Heaves gorgeosity
Whenever I find myself
Growing grim.
The pilot at the antelope
Flows like silvery wine.
Grass stalks
with a strong arm
Whistle gold and silver
Whenever it is
A damp
November
In my soul.

[Blorg]

The lunatic at the altar retreats and advances to
The hum of ordinary things. Some chime
(it might be a motor horn)
it was like silvery wine, rarest spun
Heavenmetal.
Whenever it is a damp,
drizzy November
He with cross'd hands
sings over the palings.
The truth was like worms;
Nonsense requires a strong moral principle.

[Makers]

The lunatic at the altar retreats and advances to
The hum of ordinary things. Some chime
(it might be a motor horn)
it was like silvery wine, rarest spun
Heavenmetal.
Whenever it is a damp,
drizzy November
He with cross'd hands
sings over the palings.
The truth was like worms;
Nonsense requires a strong moral principle.

Wow! That's awesome...even better than I expected could be done.

[gator]

The unmarried children
at the railings
roll through my guts
like a cage of silk.

Wonder of wonders
to the asylum, braced
round my bed.

Whenever the lunatic is carried
to prove I was in such bliss
like the rarest spun heavenmetal.

Some chime at the altar, sing
the trumpets bringing up the rear.