To create my found poem, I decided to use an article on an unfair decision regarding someone needing an abortion. This article was based on a woman who almost died because the Texas laws made it so that she could not terminate her pregnancy until it was life threatening to her, even though her baby was dying inside her. As a woman, this is a very important topic to me. I knew I wanted to create a poem that illustrated how certain laws can really affect a woman. I decided to first read the article without looking for words to cut out. Then, I read it a second time and highlighted the words and phrases that stood out to me on a google document. On my printed out copy of my article, I cut out all of the words and phrases that I had highlighted. Once everything was cut out, spreading everything out randomly really helped me start my found poem. I knew I wanted to emphasize the effects abortion laws have on women, and seeing the different phrases next to other random phrases really helped me do that.
I am very happy with the way my poem came out. This experience helped me understand why Philip decided to create Zong! in this format much more. The short little phrases I used definitely created a more dramatic effect to emphasize the important meaning behind my poem. I wanted to represent women’s rights and respect their right to live. Those were also Philip’s intentions when writing Zong!. These Africans’ rights and lives were taken away from them. The woman who I am referring to in my poem almost had her life taken from her because her right to terminate her pregnancy when it was very much needed was taken from her.
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