Austin Kleon's creative writing and sketching whisked perfect "clean the house" moments from our day. We would be grateful for that alone if there weren't so much more on his website to celebrate. Since we didn't have time to do everything, this means we did, at least, have time to do something. We discovered poems in magazine articles. "Found poetry". Poetry made from words which emerge from a periodical page and arrange themselves magically into a poem.
A found poem found by Austin Kleon which seems quite worthy of a tee.
Like a scupltor faced with a block of granite, wondering what shape will emerge, the poet of found poems stares long and hard before beginning the process of elimination and carving that will reveal the poem among the wasteland of words.
Max chews on his tshirt while scouring the printed magazine page for words.
Our eyes felt a little heavy after carefully sifting through all the fine print, but it was a fun and simple lesson in constructing poems from those building blocks called words.
You find more leeway for wackiness in both grammar and syntax and, in the process, find a way to discuss grammar and syntax in a manner that does not lead to immediate death by boredom.
I'm sure you could play this by circling found words rather than painting over the non-found words, which would make this a great game for long car trips and other moments in which sitting in one place is required.
