Verbatim found poetry is an intriguing collection of found poems. Poems found in ordinary, and not so ordinary places. Submit yours.
Most of them were left just where they fell.
We came to the man with big mustache;
he lay down the hills towards the river.
The Indians did not take his buckskin shirt.
The Sioux said, ‘That is a big chief. That is Long Hair.’
I don’t know. I had never seen him. The man
on the white-faced horse was the bravest man.
Two Moon, a Cheyenne chief, recalling the Battle of Little Bighorn in an interview for McClure’s Magazine, September 1898.
I hurry in the clothes I’ve now got on,
trousers and ragged jacket; the bald place
upon my head made by thrusting the corves;
my legs have never swelled, but sisters’ did
when they went to mill; I hurry the corves
a mile and more under ground and back;
they weigh three hundredweight; I hurry
eleven a-day; I wear a belt and chain
at the workings to get the corves out;
the getters that I work for are naked
except their caps; they pull off all their clothes;
I see them at work when I go up; sometimes
they beat me, if I am not quick enough,
with their hands; they strike me upon my back;
the boys take liberties with me sometimes,
pull me about; I am the only girl
in the pit; there are about twenty boys
and fifteen men; all the men are naked;
I would rather work in mill than in pit.
17-year-old Patience Kershaw’s account of working in a Halifax coal pit, from Facts and Figures, May 1842.
I can’t advise you in my favour because I
think it would be beastly for you, but think how nice
it would be for me. I am restless & moody
and misanthropic & lazy & have no money
except what I earn and if I got ill you would
starve. In fact it’s a lousy proposition. On
the other hand I think I could do a Grant and
reform & become quite strict about not getting
drunk and I am pretty sure I should be faithful.
Also there is always a fair chance that there will
be another bigger economic crash in
which case if you had married a nobleman with
a great house you might find yourself starving, while I
am very clever and could probably earn a
living of some sort somewhere. All these are very
small advantages compared with the awfulness
of my character. I have always tried to be
nice to you and you may have got it into your
head that I am nice really, but that is all rot.
It is only to you & for you. I am jealous
& impatient — but there is no point in going
into a whole list of my vices. You are a
critical girl and I’ve no doubt that you know them
all and a great many I don’t know myself.
From a letter written by Evelyn Waugh in 1936, after his first wife had left him, to her cousin. By Marika Rose.
Being an Exotic Drinking Book, or
Around the World with Jigger, Beaker,
And Flask: THE SAIGON SPECIAL,
another ODD DRINK from the CAPITAL
CITY OF FRENCH INDO-CHINA & DATING
from the YEAR 1925…
This dates back to 19-
25 when the good old SS RESOLUTE
stopped in French Indo-China, and some
of our friends undertook to fly upriver
as near to the marvellous Cambodian
ruins of Angkor, as might be sane,
then motor back via Pnom Penh—imagine
a place called Pnom Penh—to Bangkok
to meet ship again at Pak Nam….
The plane reminded us of a celery crate
decorated, respectively, with an electric fan
and an evinrude motor. It sputtered and
died finally coming to rest on the Saigon
River, with no chance to walk home….
This addition to any anthology of damp-
ness was one remembered aftermath
when back in Saigon, and muttering about
the contrariness of fate generally.
On checking we find that it is a slightly
sweeter Jerusalem Between-
the Sheets, plus a nip of egg white.
From The Gentleman’s Companion: Being an Exotic Drinking Book or, Around the World with Jigger, Beaker, and Flask Vol.2, CH Baker (New York, 1946). By Jerome.
Positioned in the water in an uncomfortable pose,
afflicted with a relatively high mean density,
suffering from substantially high frictional drag,
and unable to raise and lower its neck
and hence unable to adopt a synchronous gait,
we conclude that giraffes would be very poor swimmers,
and that it might be assumed that they would avoid
this activity if at all possible.
Testing the flotation dynamics and swimming abilities of giraffes by way of computational analysis.
Top of the list is cupcakes. Does anyone
actually eat this sickly over-iced,
pseudo kitsch, toy food except perhaps
a few girly women who think having
a large shoe collection makes them maverick.
Big black pick up trucks as driven by men
whose default fabric is camouflage. These
swollen testosterone substitutes are
the automotive equivalent
of a liquorice flavoured ribbed condom.
PVC banners, those dingy oblongs
of bad computer graphics tied onto
every suburban pub, roundabout, school.
Usually advertising a singles nite
or fundraising fayre long since past, or worse
still, a carvery. Pop up anything.
The vaguely west coast stubbly check shirted
bloke who features in every phone, computer
and small car ad. You know the one
with scruffy hair and a retro t-shirt
probably designs apps that no one asked for
and fewer people need.
From The Pitiable Impossibility of Debt in the Mind of Someone Shopping.
José Manuel Miguel Xavier Gonzales,
in a few short weeks it will be spring. The snows
of winter will flee away, the ice will vanish,
and the air will become soft and balmy. In short,
José Manuel Miguel Xavier Gonzales,
the annual miracle of the years will
awaken and come to pass, but you won’t be here.
The rivulet will run its purring course to the sea,
timid desert flowers will put forth their tender
shoots, the glorious valleys of this imperial
domain will blossom as the rose. Still, you won’t be
here to see.
From every tree top some wild woods
songster will carol his mating song, butterflies
will sport in the sunshine, the busy bee will hum
happy as it pursues its accustomed vocation,
the gentle breeze will tease the tassels of the wild
grasses, and all nature, José Manuel Miguel
Xavier Gonzales, will be glad but you. You
won’t be here to enjoy it because I command
the sheriff to lead you out to some remote spot,
swing you by the neck from a nodding bough of some
sturdy oak, and let you hang until you are dead.
And then, José Manuel Miguel Xavier
Gonzales, I further command that such officer,
retire quickly from your dangling corpse, that vultures
may descend upon your filthy body until
nothing shall remain but bare, bleached bones of a cold-
blooded, copper-colored, blood-thirsty, throat-cutting,
chili-eating, sheep-herding, murdering son of a bitch.
The sentence pronounced on a murderer by a federal trial judge in New Mexico, 1881.
(after Macaulay)
All who could help or hurt at Court,
ministers, mistresses, priests, were
kept in good humour by presents
of shawls and silks, birds’ nests and
attar of roses, bulses of diamonds,
bags of guineas.
Lord Macaulay, as quoted in The Company that ruled the waves, The Economist, 17 December 2011. By Rishi Dastidar.
For it is brought home to you, at least
while you are watching, that it is only
because miners sweat their guts out that
superior persons can remain superior.
You and I and the editor of the Times
Literary Sup., and the Nancy poets
and the Archbishop of Canterbury
and Comerade X, author of Marxism
for Infants–all of us really owe the
comparative decency of our lives
to poor drudges underground, blackened
to the eyes, with their throats full
of coal dust, driving their shovels forward
with arms and belly muscles of steel.
From George Orwell’s ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’ (1937) as cited on Fors Clavigera. By Marika Rose.
Back when I was five, I used to stick yellow Hula
Hoops on my fingers and pretend to be engaged. Tiny
hands all salty, our big maroon-grey rescue Mastiff
– a girl, like me – licked them clean. Bundled in duffel
coats and balaclavas we’d meet Dad at Seal Sands
after work, watch the black-footed Little Stints wade
in the froth by the pipeline.
Dad had a stroke in the year that Lady had her first
litter. The nurse taught me to inject Lovenox (“if this is
love,” we’d grimace) straight into his stomach. He
was so angry, that’s what kept him with us so long.
But last year, we threw Dad’s ashes on the Estuary,
and skimmed stones after him.
I love walking by water, talking to him.
In pink jeans, walking Lady’s daughter (all grey now)
by the chilly inlet off Scotts Road, I catch a sapphire
sparkle – steel hoops and a furled wire net – “Planet’s
Biggest Public Art Project”, the Gazette said. Far
across the water, in silhouette, one giant loop is a
half-inch circlet. My ring finger fits right inside it.
Gallery texts written to accompany an exhibition by Annie O’Donnell, from a conversation with Becky Hunter. By Marika Rose.
Verbatim Poetry 
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