In Other News: A DIY Guide to Newspaper Poetry

Posted on February 23, 2010 by sophiegps

Instead of writing poetry about current affairs, why not have a go at making poetry out of them? Newspaper and magazine articles provide an abundance of words ready for poetic manipulation. Cartoonist and poet Austin Kleon crafts his Blackout Poetry by erasing words in news articles with a marker pen. Often moving and always interesting, these poems push the boundaries of the poetic form and reveal surprising snapshots of beauty in blocks of newsprint.

The practise of text alchemy has been a long standing one, with poet Tom Phillips creating visual masterpieces such as these in the 1970’s.

 

With a pair of scissors and a bit of imagination a news article can be turned into a thing of beauty. The radical Dadist movement of the 1920’s shook up the news by cutting up and rearranging its parts. Here is a word from the father of the Dadist movement on how it’s done:  

  • -Take a newspaper.
  • -Take a pair of scissors.
  • -Choose an article as long as you are planning to make your poem.
  • -Cut out the article.
  • -Then cut out each of the words that make up this article and put them in a bag.
  • -Shake it gently.
  • -Then take out the scraps one after the other in the order in which they left the bag.
  • -Copy conscientiously.
  • -The poem will be like you.
  • -And here you are a writer, infinitely original and endowed with a sensibility that is charming though beyond the understanding of the vulgar.

-Tristan Tzara

Why not pick up your local paper and make news into poetry? Upload your alchemic creations to the GPS website to put them on the global poetry map.

Global Poetry System is a user generated world map of poetry found at www.southbankcentre.co.uk/gps

 For more newspaper poets and text alchemists, including Tom Phillips and Sam Winston, visit the poetry library website.

IN OTHER NEWS: Jane Gardam tells The Guardian about how she is taking poetry out onto the streets of Sandwich

Filed under: Global Poetry System | Tagged: , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Poetry that travels

Posted on January 26, 2010 by sophiegps

Global Poetry Systems is a user generated world map of poetry found at www.southbankcentre.co.uk/gps

Imprisoned in a cage of sound, even the trivial seems profound.

What are the things that you notice when you’re commuting to work, waiting for your bus or taking a long distance journey? Maybe you’re busy avoiding elbows and newspapers on the London underground, or listening to your favourite songs to drown out conversation. The endless rows of tube adverts and bus-stop billboards can be enough to drive anyone mad, but what if there is something more remarkable to read?

The GPS team, now including two new interns, Chris and Sophie, have all been looking out for poetry on their journeys: from the buses in London to the subways of Paris; from a Bolivian train graveyard to the railroads of Louisiana. Check out this week’s featured poems to see what we discovered.

GPS website users have been discovering poetry on their journeys too, and uploading photos to put their trip on our world poetry map. There’s plenty of it to be found since the launch of the Poetry On The Underground project.

Maybe there are hidden joys on your journey that you’ve never noticed before. Next time you’re travelling, keep an eye out for the poetry that might be travelling with you. With Poetry On The Underground launching their new series of ‘Science’ themed poems in February, we’re looking forward to seeing where the six new poems appear on the poetry map. Find it, map it, share it.

Filed under: Global Poetry System | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Alan Bennett’s new play

Posted on November 17, 2009 by amitgps

Alan Bennett has written a new play called “The Habit of Art”. It’s a play about poetry, music, theatre, creativity and inspiration. It’s now on at the National Theatre. I’m sure that’s enough information to induce those who are sensible to immediately procure themselves a ticket.

Hold your horses. The play is sold out until 24 January. Shame .

But all is not yet lost. Here are some useful bits of information brought to you by your friendly GPS Team:

1) You can get day seats by queuing up at the box office on the day of each performance. You’ll just need to wake up early and get yourself there in time. The value of theatre is worth such an imposition.

2) The tickets for the performances after the 24 January, go on sale on 2 December. You’ll still need to get yourself up early and be amongst the first to book. But it’s again worth it. Bagging two tickets in the stalls will make for the perfect thing to look forward to, during the bleak and depressing days formally known as January.

Good luck!

The GPS Team

Filed under: Global Poetry System | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Poetry’s in the land in Lancashire

Posted on October 26, 2009 by Lucy Macnab

stone_jetty_3GPS is Global Poetry System, a new website from Southbank Centre that creates a user generated world map of poetry – find out more at www.southbankcentre.co.uk/gps.
Litfest, one of the country’s oldest literature festivals, has been mapping poetry everywhere – from war memorials to tattoos, from children’s nursery rhymes to public art.
Oral historian Marie-Claire Balaam has been travelling around Lancashire gathering all things poetic. She was surprised how people took to the idea – after she got past the first reaction of ‘Poetry? I don’t know any poetry’, there were fragments of it in everyone’s life. I spent Friday afternoon with Morecambe Bay Writers’ Group, as they reminisced about poems they remembered from childhood. It was great how many lines and rhymes and whole long poems were stored in their memories, emerging to comfort, or entertain, or call back a moment in time. What poems have stayed with you from childhood? What happens when you say them out loud? Global Poetry System welcomes any forgotten fragments or whole poems off by heart – upload them to our world map of poetry.

Filed under: Global Poetry System | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

A Poetry Map / Mapping Poetry

Posted on October 8, 2009 by davidcooper1978

At the moment, I seem to be spending much of my time looking at, and thinking about, maps. Maps seem to be everywhere and play such important roles in our everyday lives: from Harry Beck’s iconic map of the London Underground, to the sat-navs that direct our journeys by road, to Google Earth which allows us to zoom in on our childhood homes.

I’ve also been thinking about the relationship between maps and poetry. Do writers, for example, use maps when writing poems of place? Do they use maps to check the accuracy of their representations of landscape? Alternatively, do poets use images of maps and mapping in their work? By extension, how do poets use these images? And what about us as readers? Do we turn to maps when reading about both familiar and unfamilar named places?

The GPS site should provide us with a great space in which to explore these ideas. Over the coming weeks and months, I hope to map poems which, in turn, are interested in maps and mapping. It would be great to hear from other people too. Do you know of any poems which feature maps? Do you know of any poets who used maps when writing? Do you, yourself, consult maps when reading poetry?

It will be great to find out and to develop a map of mapping poetry!

David

www.lancaster.ac.uk/mappingthelakes

Filed under: Global Poetry System | Tagged: , , | 4 Comments »

Poetryville

Posted on August 5, 2009 by amitgps

Abergavenny is Poetryville. The town is filled with words. There’s poetry in the air. I know this because I’ve just been there on the GPS map.

What an enchanting visit it was. The Year 6 students of Ystruth Primary School have recently taken to the Abergavenny streets, collecting found words and phrases. They then arranged them into verse, and planted the results on the map, which is now wonderfully full of poetic distillations of what makes this town unique. Found, made poems like these are truthful and timeless. Take a trip there on the map and see for yourself.

And while you’re there, visit the posts relating to Jeff Nuttall, a champion of rebellion and experiment in the arts, who passed away in Abergavenny in 2004. He was another element to the poetic tradition that seems to run through this town. In these posts, Ric Hool has provided some lovely insight into this fascinating man.

Filed under: Global Poetry System | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Think poetry is only in books?

Posted on May 29, 2009 by Trish Thomas

It’s engraved on a statue in the town square, remembered in nursery rhymes sung to us as children, spotted in a line of graffiti on our way to work in the morning. Poetry is everywhere.

Look out for Global Poetry System (GPS), an exciting new Southbank Centre project coming soon.

Filed under: Global Poetry System | Tagged: , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 36 other followers