Verbatim found poetry is an intriguing collection of found poems. Poems found in ordinary, and not so ordinary places. Submit yours.
Hello for people
who play music
because it feels
so good
and is very fun,
but also
want to share it
live a lot
and get free french fries
places.
Let’s play your
neighbors
front yard.
From a Craigslist ad for musicians, 4 April 2013. By Cathy Barber.
Writing is
excessive drudgery. It
crooks your back,
it dims your sight,
it twists your stomach
and your sides.
As the harbour is welcome
to the sailor, so is
the last line
to the scribe.
Marginalia from medieval manuscripts, posted on Wesley Hill’s tumblr, 13 April 2012. By Marika.
More than iron, more than lead,
more than gold I need electricity.
I need it more than I need lamb
or pork or lettuce or cucumber.
I need it for my dreams.
The output of RACTER, an early 1980s computer programmed to write prose at random.
Bill sings to Sarah.
Sarah sings to Bill.
Perhaps they will do
other dangerous things together.
They may eat lamb
or stroke each other.
They may chant of their difficulties
and their happiness.
They have love
but they also have typewriters.
The output of RACTER, an early 1980s computer programmed to write prose at random.
Down by the Fairway waterfront
where all of those artist
studios are the surge
broke into the first floor studios
drawing out paint and chalk across
the whole walkway, splashing
it back up against
the side of the building,
wave by wave,
making this insane rainbow
colored splatter paint all
across the Red Hook
shore. There must have been
mostly red paint
because the ocean in that
little alcove has turned a deep maroon.
From a letter describing the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. By Marika.
The face
of nature
reflects
all of
life’s ups
and downs.
Carve your
name on
your heart,
not in
marble.
You are
the center
of attention
wherever
you go.
Three fortunes from a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown, New York City. By J.R. Solonche.
Feel me ‘ands.
Go on, feel em.
Freezing.
I’ve got gloves in me bag,
can’t wear em.
Make me ‘ands cold.
Got em off our Mandy for Christmas.
I’ll wear them next week though.
Going down to see our Mandy.
Look at me fingers.
Blue wi’ cold they are.
Feel me ‘ands.
They’re freezing.
A customer in my place of work, January 2013. By Pauline.
Why should we
tolerate
a diet of
weak poisons, a home in insipid
surroundings, a circle
of acquaintances
who are not
quite
our enemies, the noise
of motors with
just enough
relief to prevent
insanity?
Who would want to live in a world which is just not
quite
fatal?
Taken from Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (Houghton Mifflin, 1962), p 12. By Wesley Brown.
You haven’t forgotten
Anastasia
Marina
Natasha
have you?
i hope you stay well.
will you be my valentine?
there are no
obligations.
no fee to pay
this chance comes just once
in a lifetime
again
this chance comes
just once
in a lifetime
Svetlana is waiting.
A compilation of various subject lines from my Spam box. By Mr. Wilson.
Him
In our turning we do this, that or the other. I’ve lived in this turning for fifty years,
and here I intend to stay. They’re new here they’ve only been here eighteen years.
I’ve got friends at work and friends at sport and friends I have a drink with. I know
all the people around here, and I’m not invited into anyone else’s home either.
It doesn’t seem right somehow. Your home’s your own.
They’re all related in this street. It’s awful, you can’t talk to anyone in the street about any of the others,
but you find it’s a relative. You have to be very careful.
Her
It’s friendly here. You can’t hardly ever go out without meeting someone you know. Often it’s someone you were at school with.
Since we’ve had the children I’ve got no more friends – outside the family I mean.
I don’t see my best friend much. She’s married too, and she’s always round
her Mum’s like I’m always round mine. Since we’ve had the baby, I’ve got no men friends – outside the family, that is.
Direct quotes from the research commentary in Family and Kinship in East London, by Michael Young and Peter Willmott (Pelican Books, 1957). By Peter Raynard.
Verbatim Poetry 
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