A New Form of Poetry
A while ago, I discovered a new way to write poetry. You take a novel (in this case one of the ones from a university English course which I have no intention of reading ever again) and either black out the words you don't want, or highlight the words you do want. I chose to highlight, because the black marker bled through the page too much. You highlight words on the page to form a poem. It's kinda tricky, because you're limited to the words that already exist, no creating your own. I chose to make each page a separate poem. Here's some of the ones I've gotten so far.
Happy smiles
procured him a reputation
his generosity was famous
greater than his passion
for a brilliant young widow
who had no money
his duty, most thought
offended him
oblivious of good taste
he desired a steadfast woman
with objections of his
wanton origin
You lie dead
cold, embalmed
a rotting wretch
dust to fatten the garden
Desperately wicked
my friends
punish me
I accept judgment
a dose of my blood
one drop
oh! I can bear it
Most humbly
the fallen archangel's pride
glorying in black flames
he crowned himself
so cruelly to punish
his wishes for independence
Out comes a skeleton
to walk and dance
talked of and thought of
fancy dwelling on it
it stumbled more than twice
I'll stop there. Those are the best ones I've gotten so far, though I've gone through over 120 pages of the novel, which used to be The Egoist by George Meredith. I can't say I recommend it, but it makes interesting poetry. I'm surprised, actually, how well this technique works.