Readers share search-phrase verses
The brilliant folks behind Google Poetics create found poetry from search terms. When you search on Google, it provides a list of most-frequently-searched-for phrases. The best create poetry like:
She wrote
She wrote
She wrote me a letter
She wrote love on her arms
She wrote lonely on her body
She wrote the book
Recently, I invited you to share your found poetry in a writing contest. Here are some of the best pieces.
Claire Sturgeon, media communications specialist at Institute for Genomic Biology at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, submitted this piece:
He studies
He studies at university
He studies how things originated
He studies where morals come from
He studies the impact of human behavior on emotion
He studies her
Claire, I love the way the progressively longer lines build up a rhythm that’s broken by the short last line. That approach really emphasizes the twist in your final line.
Patti Tironi, director of Employee Communications — Climate Solutions Sector at Ingersoll Rand, was our most prolific entrant. She submitted several pieces, including this one:
Kill me
Kill me
Kill me baby
Kill me now
Kill me deadly
Kill me softly
Kill me
Kiss me
Kill me
Tironi also submitted a found poem made of email subject lines:
Compendium of All Things Ridiculous
Compendium of All Things Ridiculous
You can’t always reason with those who make the decisions
Change is rarely as easy as it is necessary
No sense delaying the inevitable
You can feel the tires rubbing against you
It’s just a matter of when they hit drive
And the winner is …
Tironi wins the prize not just for being prolific, but also for this fine found poem:
I am born
I am born
I am born again
I am born in thunder
I am born to win
Congratulations, Patti. Watch your mailbox for a little found poem-related prize.
And thanks to everyone who played!
Play With Your Words
Surprise and delight readers
There's a little piece of your brain — it's called the Broca's area — that's responsible for helping you sort through all of the many messages you get each day.
Well-worn phrases and familiar ideas don't activate the Broca's area. Plain old 'splainin' doesn't do anything for it either. But creative techniques like wordplay do.
At Master the Art of Storytelling — our two-day hands-on creative-writing master class on Feb. 19-20, 2019, in San Diego — you’ll learn how to tickle your readers' Broca's area — and cut through the clutter of competing messages — with wordplay. Specifically, you’ll learn how to:
- Go beyond twist of phrase: Learn to flip phrases; compress details; sub soundalikes; list, rhyme and twist — even coin new words.
- Find online tools that do most of the work for you: Walk away with links to some of the best (free!) wordplay resources — as well as ideas for how to use them.
- Polish your skills in our wordplay workout: Get “recipes” for creating 14 types of wordplay, from anagram to etymology to oxymoron.
Learn more about our
San Diego master class.
Leave a Reply