Update | June, 2016: Winners have been announced.
Easter bonnets and baby birds, new flowers, foods and fashions: Now that it’s spring, we’re celebrating “all this juice and all this joy” — and, as always, looking forward to the return of National Poetry Month.
Our Found Poetry Contest is our oldest blog tradition, and one we’re thrilled to see embraced by teachers across the curriculum. No matter what you teach, consider it an invitation to have your students find and closely-read relevant New York Times articles — and have a little fun while they do it.
Everything you need to know is below, with links and tips galore. But if you have any questions, please post them in the comments, and we will answer you there.
Happy spring!
FAQ: Found Poem Challenge Guidelines
What’s a found poem?
A good nutshell description would be “poems that are composed from words and phrases found in another text.” A New York Times found poem, then, uses words and phrases taken from one or more Times articles, past or present — and since the paper has been publishing since 1851, choosing which Times article(s) to use is often the hardest part.
You can mix and combine these words and phrases into a new piece, or you might simply “find” some Times writing that you think is already poetic, as Alan Feuer has done with Craigslist and its “Missed Connections” posts.
For more detail about found poetry and its history and classroom uses, we suggest an article from English Journal, “Found Poems and Headline Poems.” (PDF)
Challenge.
Credit Kim Ryu
What are the guidelines for this challenge?
– Each poem must be 14 or fewer lines.
– You may give it your own original title if you like. The title does not count as one of the lines.
– Your sole source material must be Times pieces. You can use up to two articles. (Note: This is a change from previous years, when we allowed you to mix words from as many items as you wanted.)
– The poem itself should use no more than two of your own words. The rest of the words and phrases can be mixed up any way you like, but should all come from The Times. (You may repeat words from the articles as many times as you like.)
– You might choose to write in a traditional poetic form, or not.
– Poems may be submitted by groups or by individuals. Only one poem per person is allowed, however.
– You must be from 13 to 19 years old but can be from anywhere in the world.
– You must post your poem as a comment on this post by 7 a.m. Eastern time on May 3.
– At the bottom of your found-poem post, please provide us with the URL(s) of the article(s) you used.
– Though The Learning Network often publishes excerpts from literary and historical works on our blog via our Text to Text and Poetry Pairing features, those are off limits for this contest. The Times articles they are paired with are, of course, fair game
Note: Our commenting system doesn’t recognize fancy spacing, so using words to create interesting shapes is, unfortunately, not an option.
What makes a great found poem?
You can scroll through the work of all the students who have won so far here. In addition, keep in mind what we said in the first “Reflections” post.
And remember, too, that in a poem, every word, line break and mark of punctuation carries meaning, so have fun experimenting with repetition of words, alliteration, assonance or anything else that enhances what you would like to say.
Here is an interactive tool you might use to play with the words of your poem before you submit it: ReadWriteThink’s Word Mover.
How do I find a focus for my poem with the entire New York Times to choose from?
It’s true you can choose any Times piece ever published for this challenge, and one of our favorites the first year used an article from 1892. But the nine others we liked best that year chose much more recent work, and that’s fine, too.
Your poem can be on any topic or theme. It can be about something as broad as politics or as specific as one of the 2016 presidential candidates.
It can focus on something currently in the news, or you can use the Times archives or On This Day to write about the past.
You can explore a trend you’ve read about in The Times, or you might simply collect words and phrases from different articles around a theme like identity, loss or joy.
How and when do I post my poem?
Between today, March 31, and Tuesday, May 3, at 7 a.m. Eastern time, post your poem as a comment on this post.
How do I participate if I don’t have a digital subscription to NYTimes.com?
The Times’s digital subscription system gives readers free access to 10 articles each month. If you exceed that limit, you will be asked to become a digital subscriber.
One thing you should know, however, is that The Learning Network and all its posts, as well as all Times articles linked from them, are accessible without a digital subscription. That means that if you use any of the articles we have linked to on this blog for your found-poem project, they will not count as part of the 10-article limit.
In addition, keep in mind that you need only one great Times article to create a great found poem.
I’m not an English teacher. Can this exercise help me address the Common Core Standards in my subject area?
Yes!
The process of creating a found poem entails closely reading sophisticated nonfiction writing in order to first identify salient words and details, then recombine those words to create something that summarizes, reacts to or comments on the topic.
So, if you’re studying climate change in your science classroom, for example, having students work with one or more articles from the related Times Topics page can be a creative way of having them “determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development and summarize the key supporting details and ideas” or “analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics.”
Creating the poem itself, by deciding what to say and how to say it, might then satisfy the standard that asks that students “apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in different contexts, to make effective choices for meaning or style.”
In 2013, when we first made this suggestion, we got many science-themed poems, on topics from the human brain to dragonflies, the “God particle,” and the origins of the universe.
And judging by the many history-themed poems we receive every year, social studies teachers need little convincing that the contest can be a useful way to spur close reading of primary sources. For instance, 2012 was the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, and that year we received many poems that used both historic and current Times reporting on the event.
Here are some other ways we’ve suggested using found poetry in our social studies-themed lesson plans:
- “Words of War: Comparing Veterans’ Experiences With War Poetry”
- “He’s the Bomb: Learning About the Creation and Detonation of the Atom Bomb in 1945″
- “The Dream Continued: Creating Found Poems From Martin Luther King Jr.’s New York Times Obituary”
- “Campus Catastrophe: Writing Found Poetry to Respond to the Virginia Tech Tragedy”
Good luck, and please post your poems and any questions you might have as comments on this page.