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.
Joanna, I really like your take on the poem and the message behind it is really powerful. Life around us is constantly changing and we are forced to change with it whether we want to or not. A song that once gave you such positive memories has changed in your mind and with that, you altered the meaning to fit with your current situation. You uncovered a deeper meaning within the song and shed a positive light to a negative situation.