30, April 30th, Lines and Verses Borrowed

 

Congratulations!

Inspiration: We have shared this virtual space for 30 days — 30 days of words, phrases, images, and lines borrowed from lives lived and imagined.

Today, we’d like to encourage you to select a day from our 30 days on ethicalela.com and reread the poems looking for lines you can borrow/celebrate to make a new poem, a poem that honors and celebrates other poets who’ve shared their lives with us this past month. After your poem (or after each line) indicate the poets/poems you’ve borrowed as a thank you to the poets who inspired your verse.

Guidance:

• Pick a day and select lines form several poems to make something new — a found poem.
• Choose a poem you loved or found intriguing and try to answer someone else’s poem with a poem of your own.
• Choose a line you especially appreciated. You might pull out one of their lines to make your own.
• Add another stanza to someone else’s poem.
• Respond to someone’s poem with a new point of view. For example, I wrote a poem on Poem Twenty-Two from a tree’s point of view; you might write a similar poem from the person or equipment that was doing the deforestation.

Example of pulling lines from several poems to make something new, a found poem: For example, if you enjoyed the super powers day, go back to Poem Seven and find lines from a few poems to make your own. You can blend some of their lines with yours. A special thanks to Rieley, Jasmine, Louie, Kinga, and Ruby for your lines, which come together quite nicely here:

If I had a superpower, I’d

Steal anything I want, pull pranks, have fun (Rieley);
Chuck and move things with my mind, alter someone’s opinion (Jasmine);
Use instant transmission to teleport anywhere, around the world in one day (Louie);
Yes, finally! I’d be able to meet Nicholas Cage (Kinga);

But maybe, sometimes, I’d

Let go of all the imaginary
and focus on finding the super hero (Ruby)

within.