Found Poetry

Creating found poetry is one of my never-fail creativity jumpstarts.
Pull pages from a couple of different books or magazines or newspaper articles. I often use pages from my poetry anthology from college and pages from old novels.
Then cut out five or ten or fifteen phrases that jump out at you--words you like, pieces you are attracted to for whatever reason. DO NOT TRY TO MAKE POETRY AT THIS POINT!
At some point you'll have enough pieces to start jumbling them around, and before you know it (and I PROMISE this is true) these disparate fragments will turn into something both meaningful and cohesive.
It's magic! (As is often the case when we get out of the way and let art happen.)