The Arrow Finds Its Mark: A Book of Found Poems

The Arrow Finds Its Mark  edited by Georgia Heard  illustrated by Antoine Guilloppe

The Arrow Finds Its Mark is an anthology of poems that resulted from a challenge which asked poets to create a poem using already existing text ("found text") that was not currently in poem form.  Authors found text in all manner of places, from Twitter to magazines, book titles to crossword puzzle clues.  The editor's goal was to show readers that poetry can be found anywhere and that text may be manipulated in varying ways to create new meanings.

The poems were created out of ordinary text in a surprising number of ways.  Each poem is introduced at the top of the page by a short statement of "Found by (poet's name) in (location of original text)" so that the reader has information on the original source of the text.  Beyond that, the techniques widely vary.  Many poets used the exact words that they found, but arranged them into lines and stanzas that give them meaning, as in "Marilynne's Montessori Memo".  Another method used is to re-arrange the words found in a different order, as in "How to Write a Poem on Your Computer".  The most interesting technique, in my opinion, is that of simply adding a title to the text.  It is striking how a title can completely change the meaning of text.  For instance, the author Laura Purdie Salas used this road sign text as the basis for her poem:

Red Squirrels

Drive Slowly

The only changes that she made were to eliminate the capital letters and to title the poem, "They Don't Want Speeding Tickets, So..." so that it appears as:

They Don't Want Speeding Tickets, So...

 red squirrels 

drive slowly

  With that title (a seemingly very small addition), she has completely changed the meaning of the text. 

I think that this book could be very effectively used in poetry units for grades 4th through 8th.  Not only does it show that poetry may be found anywhere, but that words may be used in many ways other than what our mind first sees.  For students who are having trouble with writing poetry, the techniques in which the poets almost use words as an artist would use paint may open their eyes to the flexibility of text and words.