Saturday, October 9, 2010

Found poetry No. 1

A good method of finding poetry is to start with google's home page and type in half a common sentence. This throws up common searches. It generates enough randomness to be amusing and also enough content you can make sense of. These change over time, depending on what people have searched for recently. Some are song lyrics, and some you may recognize from famous speeches. Try it. Minutes of fun for you and your fellow cubicle dwellers!

Here are the best two:

Type in 'It is not' and you get:

It is not the critic who counts
It is not good for man to be alone
It is not death to die
It is not meant to be tame impala
It is not our darkness that we fear
It is not the benevolence of the butcher
It is not in heaven
It is not illegal to be illegal in Massachusetts
It is not a tumour.

And try this one, slightly less lyrical but no less cryptic, by typing in 'It is':

It is well with my soul
It is what is
It is written
It is 416 kilometres west of Sydney
It written Oceania
It is people it is people it is people
It is not OK
It is finished.

Next time i will discuss timbre, metre and voice in reciting found poetry.