Journal 52, week 8: Found Poetry

Today is Thursday, but I've had the latest journal prompt from Chelle at Journal 52 finished since early Monday morning.  To an altered book artist, this is a technique you might have learned even before you created your first spread.  In fact, it's one of the first techniques that might have brought some modern (as opposed to ancient) altered book artists together.  Although I didn't include it in my Altered Book class I taught over the course of a year on this blog (see my right sidebar for links to the classes), it simply gives you a voice or an outlet to "find" text within the written words on the pages of books you are altering.  There's no wrong or right way to do this, and the sentences don't have to make perfect sense to anyone but you.

I've never seen found poetry quite the way Chelle demonstrated it, because she added artwork on the page, which I have never done.  Normally, one looks for the found poetry, then crosses out the words that are irrelevant.  No artwork is needed, since the page takes on a life of its own.  Having said all that, here is my interpretation of week 8, also known as Found Poetry.

I added the image I found in an old book that I thought went well with the found words I chose.  I did this only because Chelle added art on her page, and the file folder would have been quite bare without it.

A close up shows "Discriminating businessmen split

many craft industries climaxed by naked relations."

You can see where I got a bit carried away and forgot to look for the final word I had chosen.  Those little stamped images on the right side of the page were made by the cap on one of the pens I used to remove the irrelevant words.

I'm sure you will agree that these look like discriminating businessmen trying to split craft industries.  The rest of the wording turned out to be rather "R" rated, which had me laughing and rolling under my craft table.  Note also there are no women in this photo, which was taken from a 1967 school book on tax law.

If you can't get enough found poetry, you can got to this site that hasn't been updated in several years, but is still worth visiting.

You can find Chelle's prompts on Journal 52, but the artists must show their work on Facebook or Flickr, neither of which I'm a member.  So I always appreciate those of you who visit and see how I interpret each prompt.  You are a silent majority vocal minority, and I appreciate your visit.