Category: Found Poem

By: Luella Luttkus

For this assignment, my short text was song lyrics of “WAP” by Cardi B which features Megan Thee Stallion. This controversial, popular song started a large debate regarding whether or not Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion should be criticized for objectifying women and their bodies throughout their 3-minute-long song. Throughout these lyrics, both female singers include excruciating sexual descriptions and exhibits women as sexual objects when relating to vicious sexual intercourse. This song made women worldwide very uncomfortable and most agree they feel like the songs interpretation of intercoruse is far from realistic.

When working on my poem I wanted to create a different type of uncomfortable feeling for the reader while using the same exact lyrics from the song. Doing so shows how intense and gruesome these lyrics are. The poem I created is a story of a girl who was sexually assaulted when asking for a ride home from a mysterious man. The start and end of this poem have “There’s this house” repeating but the part that is crossed out is “some whores in”. Erasing this line and the repetition of what is showing emphasizes how the girl will live the rest of her life thinking about the events that took place throughout the poem. The description of the man’s house has been implanted into the girls brain because of the dreadful memories she will have for the rest of her life. The being includes details of the man and hints as to how the girl was put into this position. Then instead of getting into sexual details like the song does, I used the title WAP and the repetition of wet ass pussy throughout the song to be the silence during this unbearable experience. Finally i ended my poem with internal thoughts from the girl after this hideous experience has happened. My last line included the mention of cops to ensure to the reader that the girl got justice but the last word of my poem is “whores” because that is now what the girl will be labeled as even after this life altering encounter.

My found poem used the text from Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which is the court case overturning Roe v Wade. This case made it so that women no longer have a constitutional right to have abortion. I used this text because as a woman it is a very scary thought that we are losing the rights to our own bodies, especially when men are making these laws.

When creating the poem, I used words that stood out to me regarding the circumstances. Opinion was a word that kept coming up. This seemed fitting, as these laws are being written based off of the opinions of everybody, except for those needing abortions. I also pulled words that reminded me of how women were described when it comes to being in positions of power such as “incorrect, irrelevant, innocent”. After I chose the words I wanted to use, I spread them out on paper and formed statements to show the absurdity of the laws put in place. I referred to abortion as a crime since under some new laws, it is a crime. I had a lot of fun making this poem and it definitely gave me an insight as to how Zong! was written. I understand now how the space works in correlation with silence and feeling, and how inside a text shows other meanings.

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.

Buck v. Bell is one of the saddest cases I have read and once I saw this assignment I knew that I was going to use this case. Carrie Buck was raped by the nephew of her foster mother. The foster family institutionalized her and blamed her for what happened. She was brought to the State Colony Epileptics and Feebleminded which is where her mother was being institutionalized for also being sexually promiscuous. She gave birth at the Colony. Under a Virginia law that allowed for the sterilization of those with mental issues, Buck was the first chosen to be sterilized. Since her mother was already classified as feeble-minded, social workers looked at her daughter who they diagnosed as it too by comparing the eight-month-old to other babies. Carrie ended up being sterilized and it was later determined that she and her daughter both did not suffer from any mental illnesses.  

Since I already knew the correct story behind the case, I knew I wanted to start with the correct facts and work towards the decision of the Supreme Court. I thought this was important because, during this time, everyone was focused on the eugenics movement and not on the correct way of diagnosing mental illness. It was hard to find the exact words I needed to really describe the story but the fewer words ended up working better. I tried to break up the lines with some spacing but not enough to change the story. My main goal was to tell Carrie’s story with the correct facts that were ignored by the justices, like NourbeSe Philip in Zong! I felt really bad for the Buck family while I was reading the articles. They all were deemed mentally incompetent because men raped them. It truly is one of the worst decisions because of the comment from Justice Harlan. I knew from the beginning that “three generations of imbeciles are enough” was going to be my ending because that is the justification for sterilizing her. 

When I came across the song “Just A Girl” by No Doubt I was immediately saddened by the repeated phrase “I’m just a girl”. As a girl myself, I felt offended because of how degrading the title and lyrics are to my gender. The song goes on to express different ways in which girls are restricted from doing certain things. This inspired me to create my found poem and develop a new message that is opposite of the one within the song. I wanted to make sure in my poem that the reader is able to understand a girl is not “just” a girl. It is important that a girl feels confident in embracing herself and being proud of who she is.

After reading the song lyrics multiple times, I decided to start searching for phrases that could be cut out and turned into something positive rather than negative. Most of the phrases I chose are taken out of context and transformed into a new meaning. I tried to line the words up like lyrics in a song. There is purposely no extra spaces in between because I don’t want people to be able to add in any words that could alter the one meaning I want to get across. It made me happy as I moved some words around and created this new message that will hopefully help girls to feel more confident.

As I was creating this found poem called Meaning of Life, I found many words that could have been related to many different things. As I was cutting out words, I was able to use the words “of” and “to” repeatedly at the end of some words. Additionally, I spaced them out a little bit because then readers can fill in the spaces with words that make sense to them. For example, “expected to… work” is how I would fill one of them, or “require to pay bills.” You can make it how you would like, and it can be positive or negative.

            I decided to use one of the syllabi from another class because on the first day/week of classes, I feel so overwhelmed by all of the information given to me. Then after that, they dive right into the content. I feel like they give don’t give us any time to process the information given or even sometimes make friends in the class so we can support each other. Also, while I was reading through the syllabus I was thinking, does my professor even follow half of the things mentioned in this? I found some words that I wanted to use in the poem, but I had no idea what new meaning it was going to have until some of the phrases made me think about life. We have so many things in our life we have to live up to, are expected to do, or are required to do because it is part of life and living in this world. By the end, I enjoyed being able to cut up my syllabus from another class and honestly, it brought happiness to my life during a stressful time.