Author’s Note: To write these poems, I select a paragraph from a Woolf novel and use only the words from that paragraph to create the poem. I essentially write a poem while doing a word search using Virginia Woolf as source material. I don’t allow myself to repeat words, add words, or edit the language for tense or any other consideration.
What I Found
a found poem: Virginia Woolf’s The Waves
I found a dead man by the apple trees
last night. His throat was cut;
he was floating in blood.
The silver moon glared down on us
from the pale-grey sky
and the clouds were white as dead codfish.
Standing in the implacable solitude
I felt sick and doomed
and all too delicate.
I was fixed to the leaves. I was tired.
I was unable to recover.
This was my hour of death.
• • •
Brutally
a found poem: Virginia Woolf’s The Waves
I am indistinguishable
from love—I have torn splendor
apart. Jealousy is in my eyes
in green depths.
I refresh hostility and diminish all
I perceive; I want you to hurt.
Rough hands, a shabby dress
I do not change
when I have the choice. I see you
trembling. I see your narrow
limits. You are unprotected: I am
raw fire, amorphous, huge.
I am immeasurable.
• • •
Stuck on This Page
a found poem: Virginia Woolf’s The Waves
I let light turn to slabs of soot
slice ruthlessly at poetry and people
who choose to fear
spiders and drain-pipe and mud-stained waves—
I am marvelously corrupt.
The only things I like now are the jealousies
and antipathies
knocking gently on the door. I listen
to the delicate poet weep and chuckle:
this poem is torn
the myriad scraps irrelevant.
Horror and I are one in a faded
but infinite midnight.
