One writing exercise that I’ve never used in class works around the concept of ‘found poetry.’
Charles Saatchi has told a court he has "no proof" his ex-wife Nigella Lawson ever took drugs – despite an email he sent claiming she was "off her head".He was giving evidence at the trial of the couple's assistants Francesca and Elisabetta Grillo who deny fraudulently using their employers' credit cards.
The Grillos' defence has claimed the sisters were allowed to spend by Ms Lawsonto cover her use of drugs.
Addressing the Grillos' defence counsel Mr Saatchi said: "I have no proof."
Art dealer Mr Saatchi told defence barrister Anthony Metzer QC at Isleworth Crown Court: "I have never, never seen any evidence of Nigella taking any drug whatsoever."
This story originally appeared on the following link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-25154201
The concept of found poetry is to take an existing text, a transcript of conversation, an example text from a different genre or, as here, a new story: and use line breaks to give it the appearance of a poem.From there, the poem is then likely to be constructed by the reader as a poem, rather than a piece of news. Here’s another one I constructed from an email that may or may not have been spam. It discusses suspicious activity on my Barclays Bank account however, because I don’t have a Barclays Bank account, I suspect it might not be entirely legitimate.
We Have Observed Frequently Login Attempts
Dear Customer, We recently have determined
that different computers have logged in your Barclaysaccount, and multiple password failures were present before the logons.
Do not ignore this message is for your security.
For your security we have temporary suspended your account.
Please download the document attached to this email and fill carefully.
If you do not restore your account within 24 hours, we will be forced to suspend
your account indefinitely, as it may have been used for fraudulent purposes.
We apologize for any inconvenience.
It’s not original. It’s arguable as to whether or not it’s really poetry. But it’s a fun exercise – particularly for those who are feeling uninspired. If you have access to a news story or a block of text, try it and see if you can “find” some poetry in the commonplace of regular text.
As always, if you want to share your work in the comments box below, it would be fun to see what you’ve done with this one.
