Found poem

I like writing, but I don’t write everyday, so when I need to get my motivation going I turn to found poems. What does that mean? Well, I use words already written elsewhere, mostly in articles and sometimes heard in podcasts, to put them in a new context, mix them up with more words written by other people. A creative copy and paste if you like.

List of phrases I liked or found funny/ interesting from 4 different articles/ websites on seagulls; in the order they appeared in those articles.

I cut them out and started rearranging creating a narrative. An example of a found poem about seagulls.

I’m a fan of seagulls, and wanted to write a poem about them for a while, but I kept putting it off (the usual fear of not being good enough, blah blah blah – see, I’m great with words :D). So, using other people’s words and having fun with them was really helpful.

And here are some photos of seagulls I took (with another found poem below them).

Seagull – a symbol of an English city
A gang (?) of seagulls chilling out by the waterfront in Bath.
The noise they make drives you crazy but is so distinctive that you can’t mix them up with other birds.
Forget pigeons and other city birds – seagull is the king of dirty roofs and streets

And my other example of a found poem about seagulls:

Urban pests have few admirers [the current population can quickly add up to a drain on dummy replicas] prowling the streets with guns.

You have all the paperwork to prove it.

The nuisance and the mess.

There is no evidence to discourage people gradually become more gobbled up.

How did we get here?

Competition for food,

Access to free meals around rubbish tips.

The most straightforward solution-

The end of rationing,

Not a good reason to kill.

Feathered friends, come to the riverbank! Get a blow-dry as well!

An investment, not much disturbance.

A pet tortoise doesn’t think so.

It took to the sky, swelling noisily, snatched from my hand

The most effective measure on the red list – the incorrect terminology.

I hope you find that found poems can bring you as much fun and silliness as they do to me 🙂

The words were taken from the following articles:

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/may/20/seagull-wars-councils-spending-millions-in-effort-to-banish-birds

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-49446547

Article on the website of Bird Spot.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/24/it-carried-our-dog-away-are-the-uks-seagulls-getting-more-aggressive