Here's one of my earliest published poems from a 2006 issue of Children, Churches & Daddies.

"RE: your hips"

OK
time to get serious...

Don't you think it's about time you dropped a few pounds?

No diet, No exercise...
No BS,
Only safe, substantial results in a few weeks,
period.

It only takes 24 bucks
to see if this is what you've been searching for
the last few years...
we bet it is.

This poem is not my typical style. In fact, I had very little involvement in composing this poem outside of how the line breaks were structured. This is a "found" poem that was originally a spam message found in my e-mail inbox.

Found poetry is all about taking words not originally meant to be a poem (as they originally appeared) and turning those words into a poem anyway. You can use newspaper articles, bits of conversation (something I've done more than a few times with my 4 and 6 year olds), instructions, recipes, letters, e-mails, direct mail and even spam e-mail (they had to have some value, eh).

With found poetry, you do not alter the original words, but you can make line breaks and cut out excess before and/or after the poem you've "found." The power of  found poetry is how words not intended as poetry can take on new and profound meanings as found poems.

For instance, the spam e-mail I received above gave me a little chuckle at first. But then, the content stuck with me, and I began thinking about two different sides of this message. First, obesity is more of a widespread problem now than at any other time in human history. Second, more people have eating disorders (whether eating too much or too little) and body image issues now than, perhaps, at any other time in human history, too.

As a result, this poorly crafted spam message that was intended to try and get people to check out some dietary product takes on a much more powerful commentary as a found poem. For some, it will draw a smile. For others, it will speak to the problems of overeating and lack of exercise. For still others, it will symbolize how people are harming themselves physically and mentally by placing too much emphasis on their body image.

Not every found poem has to make a commentary, but this is one example. For "writing" your own found poems, you just need to continue doing what all writers do: Pay attention to your surroundings. If you find something interesting, see if it'll work as a poem.

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Also, if you're reading this blog in the United States, have a happy and safe Labor Day weekend!

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This week, my oldest son (6) started kindergarten (and riding the school bus), and my youngest son (4) started preschool. Besides making me feel sentimental and teary eyed about how fast my little guys are growing up, the beginning of school reminds me of my own days as a youngster. While both my boys know computers about as well as I do, back in the day we were just tackling the alphabet in kindergarten.

And so, of course, today I want to cover the alphabet poem.There are many different ways to write an alphabet poem.

You can write a poem where the first letter of each word is a different letter of the alphabet:

Kangaroos queried zebras
for clues about disappearing
x-ray machines, but those
striped horses were pathetic:
"You never ogle vain
underoos." Even jumping
retain less gibberish.

A tactic for writing this poem is to write out the alphabet ahead of time so that you can pay attention to which letters have been used and which letters are still up for grabs. This poem will stretch your mind in unexpected ways.

Of course, you can also do this consecutively through the alphabet:

A barbaric canopy divided elephant
flag givers high in jumping karate leg
mounts nevermind old pirate quarrels
registered self-employed tax-paying
units vacated wordlessly xylophonic
yesteryear zealots.

So yeah, I'm totally not proficient with the alphabet poems, but you get the idea, right? (I'm sure both my sons could do a better job.)

Another method for alphabet poems is to go through the alphabet using the first letter of the first word for each line:

After much deliberation,
Bob decided he should
Cancel his appointment with the
Dentist, because he has an
Ear ache, not a tooth ache.
Figuring this fact out
Gave Bob all the help
He needed to say,
"I need to cancel tomorrow's appointment
Just because I now
Know what is wrong with me.
Last week, I somehow
Made the mistake of
Not knowing my
Own teeth from my ears.
Please forgive the
Questionable error in
Recognizing simple
Symptoms."
Then, Bob called
Up his town's
Very good ear specialist,
Who understood from Bob's background in
Xylophone playing and excessive
Yelling made him prone to
Zealot ear canal damage.

You can always flip the alphabet, too. That is, instead of going A to Z, you could write these pieces from Z to A. It's all about having fun and stretching your mind. Kind of like school.

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I submitted some poems to The Quirk yesterday--a cool literary journal based out of West Lafayette, Indiana. I've totally been bad about submitting this year. While I have the discipline to write 2-3 pieces a day (on average), I don't have the discipline to submit even once a week.

Maybe this is because the writing is something I have little control over; I've just always been a person who notices things and starts writing them down paying little mind to whether I'm writing good or bad stuff. I just write, because I'll physically explode if I don't.

On the other hand, submitting is kind of like forcing myself to swallow 16 ounces of super yucky cough syrup. It doesn't come naturally for me, and I sure as heck don't wake up thinking, "Where can I submit today?"

But maybe I should treat submitting kind of like my running. My running thrives when I force myself to get into a routine of some sort--whether that means running 20 miles a week or 3-5 days each week. And once I get into a routine I find that it's a lot easier to keep making small contributions that pay big long-term dividends.

So I'm going to try to get into a routine...but we'll see; we'll see.

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I recently posted a new poem on my Faulty Mindbomb journal. Go to http://faultymindbomb.blogspot.com to check out Ray Succre's "The Detonation of Rabbits," as well as other previous poems and poets.

And definitely feel free to submit your work. I'm not tied to any specific style; I just want something that gets my attention, whether the poem is long or short, mean or nice, happy or sad, etc.

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Also, I've been reading The Best American Poetry 2006, edited by Billy Collins and David Lehman (Scribner Poetry). These "best of" anthologies are great for keeping an eye on what other poets are doing with their writing, as well as providing inspiration for your own work. One of the special tools of this particular anthology is that the poets often explain what they're trying to do in their poems in the back of the book. This is valuable for providing new ideas for how to attack your own poems.

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Have a great weekend!

"Pissy About Apostrophes," by Steven Huff on Random Lunatic News, goes into a long rant about his "substandard education in the mechanics, the nuts and bolts of good writing." As one might imagine from the title, this post is both amusing and helpful.

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"Kakanipoetry.com Launches Innovative Poetry Game" from daijiworld.com, reports on an interesting and "easy-to-play" poetry game for poets who can read Kakani.

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"When writing poetry becomes a 'business'" from The Hindu, looks at Kurdu poets struggling with writing for an audience (or market), instead of for themselves (or for the art).

As a follow-up to this article, I would suggest reading my post on the importance of setting poetry goals. An argument could be made that poets should not complain about audiences scorning high art over more simplistic forms of poetry. If a poet wants art over pleasing a crowd, then nothing is sacrificed. The problem that may arise, of course, is when poets want to please crowds and attain high art. It's hard to get everything you want.

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"Out of the garrets," by Fiona Scott-Norman for The Age, looks at performance poetry in Melbourne, Australia. "Poets are becoming the new pop stars," writes Fiona. Which begs the question: Should all poets be booking flights to Australia? Or, are all poets already there?

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"Charles Simic Receives Poet Laureate Post, Plus $100,000 Award," by Jeffrey Burke for Bloomberg, shows that Simic has had one helluva week with the poet laureate announcement and now a separate $100,000 prize as winner of the American Academy of Poets' Wallace Stevens Award.

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Also, my latest edition of Faulty Mindbomb is out. Rachel Carlson wrote the poem "My Fat Content." Check it out at http://faultymindbomb.blogspot.com/2007/08/fmb0027.html.

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"Women dominate new writing awards shortlist," by Michelle Pauli for Guardian Unlimited, announces that eight of nine writers shortlisted for the New Writing Ventures awards are women. Three finalists are selected for three prizes: Poetry, Fiction and Creative Nonfiction. The poetry shortlist includes the only male finalist, Mir Mahfuz Ali, in addition to Jemma Borg and Jacqueline Gabbitas.

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