Spread Kindness

For my Found Poem, I decided to use the lyrics from the song 1-800-273-8255 by Logic ft. Alessia Cara and Khalid. As soon as I found out about this assignment, this song was the first idea to pop into my head. I chose this song because it deals with such a dark sensitive topic; suicide.

This song is about the struggles of having depression and contemplation of suicide. By taking out and rearranging lyrics, I was able to change the original message that the singer wanted to portray. My poem is about feeling alone and struggles people experience in life. It is about finding someone who may bring light to negative situations and how important that person can be without even knowing it. You never really know what someone is going through and a simple act of kindness or showing you care can make a big difference in someone’s life.

Adjusting the Role of “Backstreets” by Bruce Springsteen

Found Poem (1)

I was having issues converting my poem into an image file, so I put it in as a PDF instead.

I chose to do my found poem on Bruce Springsteen’s Backstreets. This song was a huge part of my life growing up. Anytime I hear it, I remember sitting on the back porch on warm summer nights with the radio playing softly, watching fireflies and heat lightening crack across the sky.  This song would bring me instant peace, and help take me back to a time when I had no worries or cares at all.

The reason I decided to do a found poem with the lyrics to Backstreets is because, over this past summer, the feelings this song used to illicit were thrown into confusion.  I was going through a period of uncertainty with my future and myself: I was transferring colleges, my friend’s and family were moving hundreds of miles away, I was experiencing severe writers block.  My reality was very quickly shifting away from the norm that I had long since established.   And so, when I listened to Backstreets, instead of being brought peace, I would feel a sort of nostalgic loneliness, no longer having the components to any of the memories that I associated this song with.  Instead of bringing me catharsis, I just became more aware of the things I was losing.

It is for this reason that I decided to black out the lyrics to Backstreets instead of simply erasing them.  This past summer, I didn’t erase the happy memories that defined this song for me.  Rather, they became clouded to me; defining themselves on what I had lost in the process of getting older, instead of simply just fading away.  The presence of these covered words, of these covered memories, is what makes the feelings that this song would illicit over this past summer so impactful for me.  It helps remind me that, even though that uncertain period of my life perhaps shaded my perception of the song, and the memories associated with them, the true memories are still there.  All that’s left to do is uncover them.

What’s That Song Called?

For my poem I chose to start with the lyrics to the song Gucci Gang by Lil Pump and I extracted all of the Gucci gangs; all forty-eight of them so you can see them by themselves to get a feel for just how repetitive the song is. I chose this because I’m not really into literature or politics enough to get angry about a bill, law, or text, but I do love music.

I mainly listen to hip-hop and so called “mumble rap” however, I don’t like extremely repetitive music. When I tried to think of an annoying song this one was the first to come to mind. If you take out the hook, which appears four times throughout the song, and the forty-eight Gucci gangs, there’s only about 120 words left in the song that make up the only verse on the song. There isn’t a ‘correct’ song structure, but four hooks and one verse just seems lazy.

Found Poem: Avenue

Note: The photograph of my found poem would not upload. Avenue

I felt like I was drunk

I remember

driving in your car

City lights

speed so fast

cruising to entertain ourselves

we were driving,

And I had a feeling I could be someone

I remember we were driving,

And I had a feeling that I belonged

You gotta make a decision

You got nothing to lose

I got nothing to prove

Maybe we’ll make something

Be someone, be someone

I’d always hoped for better

Thought maybe together you and me would find it

I want more from life than you could give

And finally see what it means to be living

For my found poem, I chose the song “Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman. I chose specific words from the song to create a story of a girl driving in a car towards the city with a boy next to her. The girl feels like she belongs with him but towards the end of the poem, she realizes that there’s so much more life left to live and he can not give her that. She realizes that only she alone can find her reason to live and happiness.

While this song may not be upsetting for people, it is for me. This was a song my emotionally abusive ex would sing and play guitar to. Thinking of this song places me in a bad mindset where I felt small and helpless.

Words to die to

For my found poem, I chose to use the FBI transcript of the “Death Tape” from the Jonestown Massacre.  The full transcript can be found following this link: https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=29081 . I chose this text because the Jonestown Massacre has always been something that has intrigued and troubled me. For those of you who don’t know what the Jonestown Massacre was, on November 18th, 1978, charismatic cult leader and priest Jim Jones, leader of the People’s Temple cult, instructed his followers of over 900 people to drink cyanide infused flavor aid, in what he called an act of “revolutionary suicide.” The deaths included the murder of over 200 children. Jim Jones established The People’s Temple, a Christian sect, preaching against racism and about an open and diverse world where love conquers all. He eventually led his followers to the beautiful country of Guyana where they made their home in the commune known as Jonestown. They had established a flourishing community there, but when word reached the states that some of Jones followers wanted to leave but were not allowed, some concerned family members of People’s Temple followers brought it to the attention of congressman Leo Ryan. Ryan and a few family members made a trip to Guyana to see what the situation was. They stayed a couple of days and a few of the members of People’s Temple elected to leave with them. Jim Jones begrudgingly allowed them to leave, as he didn’t have much of a choice in front of the congressman. When their plane was about to take off, everyone who was attempting to board the plane was shot dead via Jones’ orders. The events that followed are explained by the “Death Tape” and how Jones convinced nearly a thousand people to kill themselves. If you have ever heard the phrase “don’t drink the Kool-aid” this is where that expression comes from. The expression typically means, don’t believe everything you are told. It’s origins are very dark but also inaccurate, as the drink mixture of cyanide wasn’t actually with the Kool-aid brand but with grape Flavor-aid.

I took the transcript, as prepared by the FBI, and printed it off. I then cut up everything that Jones said, directed at his followers, specifically when he was speaking on their behalf or at them about their fate. The tape shows that at this point Jones is somewhat incoherent at times, he rambles a bit and sometimes doesn’t make a lot of sense. But overall his tone is very depressed and hopeless. I took pieces of his ramblings and final conversation with his followers, and made into more of a coherent explanation for why he thought this was the only route they could go.

My found poem can be found here:

Words to die to

Found Poem: ‘Young & Beautiful’

The photo of my found poem would not upload for some reason. So I will just type it through here.

Summer nights                       forever wild

city lights                             like a child

I                     love

rock n’ roll

I                 got

electric soul

still                                   young

still                                          beautiful

grace                                 body

face                  party

no longer                      young and beautiful

I got nothing              but

my aching  soul

I know

I’m              no longer

young and beautiful

My inspiration came from the desire for creativity. The song lyrics I chose to create my found poem from was ‘Young and Beautiful’, by Lana Del Rey. With the poem I created, I wanted to create a personality of an old  woman who was once a rockstar, or had that of a rockstar personality. I wanted readers to see that in the beginning she talks in the moment of her young age and how she was wild and had the free-spirited personality. Toward the end, I showed her talking in her old age. The woman comments on being not young and beautiful anymore.

The goal for this poem is to show themes of time, identity, and life. All of which can have major effects on a human. I chose the words I did to show how she felt alive and free while young. Then during old age, I showed how she took on a more depressed tone due to her not feeling and looking as appealing as she used to.

 

 

Found Poem About Danye Jones

My poem was inspired by an article recently on a Ferguson activist finding her son named Danye Jones murdered in the backyard of their home in St. Louis County in Missouri. I shockingly did not hear about this story on the news, I actually saw a tweet about the incident on Twitter. The tweet also revealed the horrific and devastating pictures of Jones that I’ve also decided to add in addition to my poem. The picture in the bottom right corner that I added is a picture of him hanging by a sheet around his neck on a tree with his pants down to his feet. Instead of having people who read my poem picture what he looked like at that moment, I thought why not actually show it.

As I began to figure out what words to use in my poem I found it very overwhelming. Even though my article was of fair enough length there were a bunch of words I would’ve liked to use but I could not use them all. I picked out the words that expressed the two point of views of what people believed happened to him and how others felt. I tried to be very creative while creating this poem because I want many people to be aware of most things that they do not inform us in the media. By placing his name several times scrabbled up I hope you would remember his name and not let what happened to him go unheard…

Red, White and Blue

I chose to share this quote that was said by Colin Kaepernick for many reasons. I am one to support our troops always and I strongly believe there is not a reason to not do so. As they will always have our backs, I will choose to always have theirs.

Instead of crossing words out, I decided it was important to keep every word because everything had crucial meaning. I strongly believe that people of any race should have the freedom to say as they please. I am not an African American so I do not know how one does feel, but I am a woman. I understand there are things that we should stand up for that our country struggles with. That is why this part was not taken out because people’s feelings and thoughts about our country are crucial to making it better.

The words that are shown in blue and red, “I am going to show pride for country”, I wanted to emphasize for many reasons. One is that we have freedom because of our soldiers. The freedom to speak our minds is because of them and the freedom to not stand during the National Anthem is because of them as well. For that, I believe that we should ALWAYS show our respect to those who fought and sacrificed their lives for our freedom. I also did these words in color because they were ALL positive. Our country could always use some positivity. Lastly, the word “country” stands out, even more, seeing that it is capitalized but also red. I did this because, to me, this word has so much power. “Country” means people thriving and living together of all cultures, religions, and races. People should want to get along and fight FOR each other, NOT against. Therefore it needed to stand out.

I believe that people should always respect the ones who left their homes, families and sometimes left this Earth while protecting us. I don’t think standing for the National Anthem is asking too much. What is great about this country is that we have the right to say what we believe and we have the right to protest. I just do not believe that disrespecting our veterans by not standing during the National Anthem is the time or place to do so.

css.php