Welcome to the found poetry challenge! Have a go at the challenge below in whatever way works for you. We would love to see your work so please share it through social media (tag @SineadKeegan and @ChawtonHouse and use the hashtag #ChawtonLitFest).
Then join us on Saturday, 16th of May at 4pm (BST) for a Facebook Live event with Sinead on the Chawton House Facebook page
Click here to see the original poems in full (after you’ve finished the exercise!)
1. Pick a number between 1 and 8
2. Go to that group and read through the lines. You may want to print them out or you can easily do this exercise by copying and pasting them into any word processor or writing app.
3. Arrange the lines into a poem. You don’t have to use them all. Don’t worry if they don’t exactly fit or make sense.
4. Go back through the lines and make any changes you want. This might be small like adding the letter ‘s’ to a word or deleting a word like ‘the’ or ‘and’. Or your edits might be larger like rearranging the word order of a line or deleting a large portion of a line.
5. Look! You’ve made a poem and you might not have written a single word. Well done…ready for a challenge?
Now that you’ve got your poetic legs and that you’ve constructed a poem let’s be brave and really go for it!
6. Go rogue. Have a look at the other groups of line – see any you like? Take them!
7. Return to your poem and add your new lines.
8. Let’s edit. This is fun bit where you play around and try different things out. Some questions you might ask yourself as you edit:
a. Do you have clear, concrete and specific images?
b. Is there a line that might work if you repeated it several times throughout the poem?
c. Do you want to join lines together? Scramble them somehow?
9. And now the hardest bit: what will you call your poem?
10. Kidding. This is the hardest bit: Share your poem with us!
a. Twitter: @chawtonhouse @sineadkeegan
b. Instagram: @chawtonhouse @sinead.keegan
c. Facebook: @chawtonhouse @sineadkeeganwriter
| GROUP 1
amidst their tall ancestral trees the screaming sea-bird quits the troubled sea and after that, through life’s long way nor mid-day sun’s exhausting power impelled by love of you and alchemella’s lobes unfold amply supplies the mind with food but not alone for pleasure’s sake your curled nose and lip awry her crimson umbels rise and nature’s rich array your mouth is worn with old wives’ kissing no fiery cloud will close your eye we search the thicket, copse, and brake may give a happier day and petals spangled over how many close their silken leaves the parent’s boasted powers from your poor tongue no accents come wherever we search the scene presents |
GROUP 2
or turns to meet the morning ray that he who runs may read presents with sweets that never cloy on some rude fragment of the rocky shore from when no succour comes – or comes too late the stately homes of England over all the pleasant land the deer across the greensward bound of some rejoicing stream the merry homes of England around their hearths by night or childhood’s tale is told the noisome damp, the infectious gale here in your radiant purple reign how softly on their bowers is laid the holy quietness to aid the visual nerve of age floats through their woods at morn all other sounds, in that still time by thousands on her plains |
GROUP 3
the bloom that courts the wandering bee gliding along Killarney’s Lake upon the summer air have given their sweets to me infuses root and flower spreads desolation over the plain and listen to the deep and solemn roar through glowing orchards forth they peep and fearless there the lowly sleep each passing clown bestows his blessing as the bird beneath their eaves the free, fair homes of England and fairies we defy her clustering fringed flowers over the dark waves the winds tempestuous howl long, long, in hut and hall go to your little senseless play may hearts of native proof be reared to guard each hallowed wall of rich variety and bright the flowery sod meet in the ruddy light |
GROUP 4
its country and its God the forest and the moor that flourish on the rocky steep hail! Goddess of persuasive art! sweet harbinger of lengthening days rare trientalis blooms and fades no burning lava passes by the horrid strife that dyes the ground with human gore, and far around exhaled along the banks of Froome and twilight’s fairy robe is spread we explore the vast variety where on the fractured cliff, the billows break the phosphorescent ray perhaps when time shall add a few and through the osier branches gleam and sweetly lull to sleep to save the embryo flowers and feel the morning gale with fascinating song like the poor mariner methinks I stand how beautiful they stand O, let me hear your heaven-taught strain |
|---|---|---|---|
| GROUP 5
as through my quivering pulses steal musing, my solitary seat I take the cottage homes of England the mingling throbs of joy and pain or lips move tunefully along nor ever leave on memory’s page to sweeten life’s decline even then I sought the sweet perfume which only sensate minds can feel and all that summer yields and yet I love you well and round the hamlet-fanes over the rapt sense’s finest strings lulls to soft harmony the wandering heart the exhilarating mountain gale to chase the filmy clouds away yes; I have seen you to gaze at the unequalled show bathe in the lucid tear secure from Etna’s storm her treacherous fan conceals hides her forked sting |
GROUP 6
you twitchest at the heart there woman’s voice flows forth in song but still increasing pleasure give beneath the wing some glorious page of old solemn, yet sweet, the church-bell’s chime already shipwrecked by the storms of fate your honeyed accents will prevail touched by your voice, the melting eye untrodden paths explore the intellectual source is lost of breeze and leaf are born eager to seize the favourite flower your pinky hand and dimpled arm even then, the witching music of your tongue sweet subject of the poet’s page science, illuminating ray and shine from pole to pole from your accumulated store cheiranthus decks the ruined wall up-hoisted arms and noddling head |
GROUP 7
or abbey’s hallowed mound and there her wasted sweets will pour but the wild gloomy scene has charms for me that breathes from Sabbath-hours and at Ben-Lomond’s base the magic of whose tuneful tongue admire the vast intelligence profusely over the ruined tower on fragments piled around eurodium – and the wise who read – cast on a rock; who sees the distant land they are smiling over the silvery brooks these gems of nature’s elegance since childhood’s playful day by lucid streams where willows weep and mingles want and woe the silvery surface over an emblem of simplicity and claim a shelter there and galium waves her cross of gold and pity me when I am frail but see, the sweepy spinning fly |
GROUP 8
science! your charms will never deceive that innocently wakes a smile scarlet or crimson, dark or fair and the swan glides past them with the sound the blessed homes of England the velvet slope, the shady vale closes against the approaching shower lathyrus from Sicilian plain of all your wondrous magic spells when I am weak and old shielded by you we dare inhale now in your dazzled half-opened eye in vain the witches’ arts assail each from its nook of leaves and little chin with crystal spread poor helpless thing! what do I see it’s with that scientific eye until every slackened nerve newly strung to find the hidden charm it’s to allay the fever’s rage with scientific lore admired the rose’s opening bloom |