“Sex Without Love,” by Sharon Olds is a poem we explored in my literary analysis class. I was stuck on what to use for this assignment, until I realized you could mostly work with whatever you have. I tried to look at this poem in a creative artistic way and rearrange it in a way that the most profound lines were seen. I think deconstructing another piece of writing and rearranging it is really cool and interesting. It goes to show that things can be analyzed and interpreted in an endless number of ways.

This was actually a therapeutic assignment and brought out a creative side of myself. I pasted the really significant excerpts of the poem onto a different color paper. I did this because I feel like there are layers behind the things Olds writes in this poem. I feel that you can delve in deeper and explore the many layers behind the words. I tried to add texture and some different shapes as well because the poem is very abstract. This was a really cool and interesting approach for literature, because literature is a form of art in my opinion. I think this is a cool exercise to take a look into different pieces of writing from a different perspective. It is a more artistic and fun way to study the writing rather than feeling like a chore. You can really engage your creative side.

My found poem comes from the song “Kill You’ by Eminem. My thought process on creating this poem was to highlight all of the violence and aggression that is portrayed in the song. There is even a line about him raping his own mother. My goal for the poem was to make it about someone who is just very angry in society. Someone who is disrespectful and a selfish person who only cares for themselves. In particular, they are sexist and look down on women. As shown through the vast amount of words used to describe them. I was initially nervous when I was making this poem as there are so many derogatory terms, but I realized that is the whole point and purpose. My process on the poem was to go line by line focusing on what was most effective and graphic. I decided to use the black marker to cross out the words I did not want to focus on. I think doing that instead of cutting out what I wanted to focus on emphasizes the power and anger of the words I used even more.

Hold Me While You Wait is the song lyrics I chose to use. Everytime I listen to this song and look at the lyrics I always feel a connection to it. The words that the artist uses makes me think about my life and what I can let go of and still hold onto. The song uses “I wish” multiple times in it, and when I listen to it, I have my own wishes to think about, but as other people listen to it they think about their own things. This song inspired me to create my found poem from it and I want readers to know that it’s okay to not always save yourself. It is okay to get help from others and get saved from other people. 

After reading the song over a couple of times I really wanted to point out some of what I think are the key points. When I listen to this song it reminds me of a person to remember to themselves that they are still worthey, the still need to fight for themselves, and there will always be someone else there to back you up. Even when someone is feeling very alone, they will always have someone by their side. I purposely put three “I Wish” lyrics down in the poem because I think that it is important that people do have wishes and that they do see them come to life. I hope this message can get through to everyone, for them knowing that they are not alone. 

The method I used for creating the poem was a simple cut and paste method where I found words or sentences that I felt would make a new poem flow and would get the general meaning across. I looked for simple yet clear statements that allow the reader to mentally see what the words say and can understand and placed them on the page like the title crawl in a Star Wars movie. Using the effect of eye tracking to allow it to flow down.

When working on the poem I just felt a similar feeling I felt that day when it happened. I just reminded me why I was pretty upset about it and just reminded me that memories can actually invoke feelings. From working on this I got a sense of what Zong! was trying to do and place what seem like separate words into a connected story that describes and invokes feelings through memories whether that be felt through first, second, or third person.

My found poem came from the song “Blurred Lines” by Robin Thicke. Growing up I actually enjoyed this song and would listen to it often, not knowing the true meaning behind the lyrics. As I got older, I started to realize the true meaning behind Thicke’s lyrics in the song “Blurred Lines”. This song comes across as offensive towards women. The lyrics to this song focus on sexual violence, objectifying women and reinforcing rape myths.

For my found poem I decided to cut up the lyrics and rearrange them on a piece of paper. I related my poem back to the book Citizen by Claudia Rankine. In the book Citizen, we see how individuals who are different feel like they are invisible and not seen for who they really are. I decided to title my poem “Blurred Lines: Feeling Unseen” because to me blurred lines comes across as something that is confusing or indistinct. My found poem expresses how an individual can be seen as an animal for being different and not seen for who they really are. It shows how one may be confused or unclear about an individual who is different than them. I really enjoyed creating my found poem. This activity helped me to better understand how Phillip came up with her poems in Zong!.

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.