When writing this "found poem" for Charlotte Perkins
Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper," the reader will notice that there is a pattern, not
just to the disturbing wallpaper, but also to the arrangement of words and sentences on
the pages. For instance, many of the sentences begin with I while
many others begin with He said. Also, the thoughts of the unnamed
narrator are fragmented, simple, and short.
With this in
mind, then, as a characteristic pattern, the reader can then arrange the "found poem" in
the same manner. Perhaps, even a style imitative of Poe's in which imagery takes the
place of his sound effects in the stanza with a last line that is of the same meter each
time and rhyme might work. For instance, the reader of Perkins's story could
compose one stanza like this:
I must not think about this paper that knows
what a vicious influence it has!
I never saw so much
expression in an inanimate thing before though all have such
looks
I never saw a thing that was not arranged on any laws
of radiation or alternation, or repeition, or symmetry
It
is repeated, of course, by the breadths, but bloated curves and flourishes with delirium
tremens go waddling up
I don't know why I write this. I
don't want to. I don't feel able. But the effort is getting to be greater than the
relief.
The next stanza can
build on the narrator's fixation with the wallpaper, and then repeat the lines of the
last group above: "I don't know why I write this. I don't want to......Then, in the
last stanza, the reader can write as the final lines,
I suppose I shall have to get back behind the
pattern when it comes night
It is so pleasant to be out in
this great room and creep around as I please! But the effort is getting to be better
than the relief; yes, better than the
relief.
(This is a great
assignment, providing you with such opportunities to write lines suggestive of the
errant mind of the narrator. Take a look at Poe's poem and read a little about him to
springboard some ideas.)
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