Found Poetry

The infinite number of tourists milling around Florence inspired me to experiment with a new form of poetry where I simply sit down in a crowded area, and write down all the snippets of conversation I here. Nothing is filtered. Everything is included. I call this "found poetry". It is beautiful to see the interconnections between the words of strangers that can only dance together on the found poet's page.

The process is long and requires a lot of patience, but I think there is a lot of great potential for this idea. I would say it would take about a month of dedicated work, sitting in the field and recording all snippets meticulously, to really produce a truthful collection of found poetry. Here is my first one.

Found Poetry # 1, 10/14/2008. Florence, Italy

Yea, because that's the wrong bus stop
An aquarium down here?
All around the windows and above the windows
This is scary.
Where? Oh. Up ahead.
Totally.
Anne, your shoe's untied.
I love it
See that?
Where we going from here?
Fourteen euro; could spend a couple hours there
With the - ah - tombs
Let's go back this way.
Broncos! Hahaha - Kansas City Chiefs.
Your things
Ahhhh - I'll never get up.
Did you see the one? That nazionale?
They scorned her
Oh my god. Oh my god.
Do you want to go to the museum and see if we can get in before 4?
Wait. What are we doing?
There's a little Italian band
Oh my god
There's where I want to go.
Bless you.
Smile.
We'll stop on the way back
Something - um - maybe a music teacher.
Alright, Harvey. Let's go.
You know what we should do?
How long you been there?
Five minutes.
Aw, sorry.
It's ok. It's ok.







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Do these copyright symbols really do anything anyway? I highly doubt it.