Sometimes words are hard to find. Like now, for me, when the words and feelings are so big they look like a giant ball of yarn; overwhelming and untangle-able.
That is when I find my words elsewhere. It might be “black-out poetry”, like the one made from my poetry submissions rejection letter collection. Or, it might be from refrigerator word magnets. Or, it might be from headlines in the New York Times. Opportunities abound and are yours for the taking. “Found Poetry”, which I first thought of as just weird, is actually quite fun. So, what is “found poetry”, anyway?
Found poetry is a literary collage, crafted by selecting and rearranging words from other sources to create something fresh and meaningful. Blackout poetry, cento, erasure poetry, and cut-up techniques are all ways to engage with found poetry. Not only is it a great exercise in close reading and creativity, but it can also be a meditative way to reconnect with language when traditional writing feels out of reach.
How to Create Found Poetry
Gather Your Source Material – This could be an old book, a newspaper, a diary entry, or any text that speaks to you.
Highlight Interesting Phrases – Look for unexpected word combinations, evocative imagery, or intriguing snippets of text.
Rearrange and Shape – Remove, rearrange, and add punctuation to shape the poem into something that feels complete.
Experiment with Form – Try blackout poetry (blotting out words with ink), centos (poems composed of lines from other works), or even digital found poetry using search engine results.
Literary Journals That Accept Found Poetry
If you’ve crafted a found poem that feels right, consider submitting it to a literary journal. Here are a few that welcome found poetry:
The Found Poetry Review – Dedicated to publishing only found poetry (currently on hiatus, but their archives are rich with inspiration).
Diode Poetry Journal – Occasionally publishes found poetry alongside traditional forms.
River Teeth: Beautiful Things – Accepts short, poetic nonfiction, including experimental found forms.
The Indianapolis Review – A journal that appreciates erasure poetry and visual found poetry.
Pangyrus – Open to hybrid and experimental poetry forms, including found poetry.
Entropy (Closed, but check for archives) – Previously published a variety of found and hybrid poetic works.
Fence – Open to experimental poetry, including found forms.
If you’re feeling stuck in your writing practice, found poetry offers a playful and rewarding way to engage with language. Whether you keep your found poems private or submit them for publication, the process itself can rekindle your creative spark, or even maybe begin to gently loosen your own giant yarnball.
(Black-Out Poem written from one of my rejection letters)
Have you tried writing found poetry before? Share your favorite sources of inspiration in the comments!
Ben’s book is, “A captivating series of short stories, both dramatically and philosophically enthralling.” KIRKUS
“Ben Talbot excels at depicting a world both alien and familiar at the same time.” MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW
Welcome to Periscope City, a place where nothing is quite as it seems. Its citizens are those with no one to love, caught in a paradox of escaping loneliness while clinging to it. Here, human emotion is fleeting, and love is nothing more than a transaction. Each story in this collection delves into the heights and depths of solitude through its characters: a writer torn between seeking validation from fleeting romances and finding comfort in the safety of isolation; a former college football star lost in nostalgia, unable to connect with the present; a young runaway scarred by her past, drawn to this desolate town inhabited by loners and serviced by robots. Prepare for an emotional gut-punch as you enter a strange, unsettling place where the broken-hearted choose to stay broken and prefer to live in solitude. Talbot’s haunting, satirical, and often absurd interconnected tales explore themes of self-destruction and elusive redemption. Periscope City will immerse you in a world where the boundary between reality and fantasy is constantly shifting.
Ben is going to read a little from his book, and then we will open it up for poems, flash fiction/non-fiction to give you a chance to add your voice to the conversation about love and loss and loneliness, and answer the age-old question, “What becomes of the broken-hearted?”
If you’re not a pro at reading, it is imperative that you come and try your luck! What better night? We can be awkward, clumsy, lonely, and literary together!
Hope to see you there, and hear you read. We’ll be sad without you….
In the meantime, enjoy this excerpt from the book!
Periscope City
A sign greeted me at the border: Periscope City: Where the Lonely Go to Live Alone.
It spoke my language, so I crossed in by foot, to the nearest place it took me to. That place was a one-story house with a long driveway called the Institute. There, they asked me dozens of questions about my immediate past and made me take a personality exam. I told them the truth: that I was a thirty-four-year-old loner whose friends had deserted him for marriage or death. They set me up in the Cramden Hotel.
During the first week, I interacted with only housekeeping and the concierge. They were all robots. It was the best the town could do to live up to its tagline.
—
Although I loved loneliness, I was still lonely as hell. After months of wallowing about my life situation, sinking into the lack of fellow humans, there was nothing I wanted more than to mix it up. I thought being lonely among robots was a different lonely as being lonely among humans. The scratch needed to be itched.
The concierge suggested a dating app called Loner, and the concierge said it had the best reputation for keeping the lonesome lonely. I filled out a profile and submitted it to the AI gods for review. It matched me with Raylene, a blonde Puerto Rican who stood over six feet. Her profile said very little about her beyond the fact that she’d moved from Buffalo, New York, and loved pets over people. In her picture, she sat on a snowy park bench and wore a fleece jacket. A French bulldog sat in her lap, and it wore a black-and-white dog poncho. It looked like a staged photo, like something in an L.L. Bean catalog, but where L.L. Bean was trying to pull off cozy, it was a cold, plastic, disconnected photo. I assumed her entire profile was an attempt at sarcasm.
Do you want to meet or not? she wrote.
Because of my lust for tall women, I wrote her back: Yes.
I have tickets to The Late Show, she wrote. Meet me at Geraldine Park at eight. I’ll be at the corner of Alaska and Winter Bear. And don’t be awkward.
—
When I showed up, Raylene was sitting on a snowy park bench in the same jacket as her photo, with her service bulldog in her lap. The dog even wore a black-and-white poncho. Raylene’s smile was all the picture was missing.
“Joe?” she asked.
Her perfume was cedar, or maybe it was the trees. Whatever the case, the scent had found its way to me, and it smelled lovely. The Loner profile was missing a smell.
“Raylene?”
“No,” she said. “Of course it is. How would I know your name was Joe?”
The bulldog barked at me.
“Sheepshead, knock it off,” she said.
Sheepshead? After Raylene fed her a pill, the dog calmed down. The pill must’ve been a fast-acting depressant, which they sold over the counter here in Periscope City. I know because of my own dog, but he didn’t need medication like me.
“You look different from your picture,” she said.
Ditto. Not only did she frown but her hair wasn’t blonde. It was purple. “How so?” I said.
“I thought you were taller,” she said.
I ignored her comment (let’s call it an insult), already being my tallest.
“Ask me something,” she said.
She was testing me, but then I remembered how sarcastic her profile had been attempting to be. The memory of it made me sweat a little with anxiety because I tried to think of something witty to say quickly, so I used a cliché. “If you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be?”
“Come on, dude,” she said. “Ask me something else.”
I gestured out to the surrounding park with my hands as if that were the explanation. “It was all I could think of,” I said.
“I told you, don’t be awkward,” she said. “What about you? Who would you have dinner with?”
I hated the question, too.
“Abraham Lincoln,” I said, and the words tasted like tinned fish.
“Why?”
“He was the first person who came to mind,” I said.
“Lame,” she said. “Now ask me a good question.”
“Okay,” I said. “Why did you name your dog Sheepshead?”
“Sheepshead Bay was the last place where I went with my husband,” she said.
“Did you separate?” I said.
She pressed her beanie down to her eyebrows, and I did the same with my trapper hat. We shared an awkward silence. It was what I got for asking a good question.
As we often hear, and know is true, writing is a solitary endeavor. Since I find long stretches of alone-time nourishing, I love that about it. But that doesn’t mean I want to go full-on-hermit. I need human interaction, even if it’s just Tina at the grocery store telling me about her cats.
Specifically, since my need for human interaction is limited, I’ve sought to find ways to find or create a writing community that is a balance of the two. Here are a few things I’ve come up with that might seen outwardly mundane, but with an added introverted twist:
· Online Writing Group: I created Bewilderness Writing, knowing that my role would be as guide, not teacher. Each week I read a poem, offer jump-off lines that folks can choose to use, or not, and then we free write for 10 minutes. Afterwards, each person reads what they’ve written and the group does not offer comment or critique. Sounds ridiculously simple, huh? It is. And what can’t be known beforehand is just how intimate and rich the writing can be within this container. Setting aside all the “writerly benefits”, it fills my need to see and hear others figuring out life using words on the page. There is great comfort there. And the tapestry of styles and voices enriches my own writing life.
There are many “writing alone, together” online opportunities without prompted writing, as well.
· In-Person Writing Group: I created “Writers in Coffee Shops” a few years ago using the social networking website Meetup. I set it up with straightforward parameters from the get-go of “writing alone, together”. We would meet at a local coffee shop, spend a few minutes sharing what we were working on, then get to it. At the end of the hour, we could share about how or what we did for the hour. After that time, folks were welcome to share their work and invite comment or critique.
For awhile, especially in the beginning, I had people who did not get the memo and wanted to chat. With gentle reinforcement those folks either got used to our system or didn’t come back. Eventually, I found a small, committed group, and we came to know our coffee shop time as not only a standing-date commitment to our writing, but a place to commiserate on the writing life. We became friends.
Want something similar?
Shut Up and Write: https://www.shutupwrite.com/While I might prefer my more “demure” group name, this is basically the same format and you can find them, with over 400 chapters all over the place
· Collaborative Writing: Recently, I had a friend and former Bewilderness group member contact me after taking a poetry class that included “renku,” which is a Japanese collective poetry composition of collaborative linked verse. My friend asked if I wanted to give it a try together. She would send me a few lines and I would send a few back. Since we’re just starting this adventure, I can’t tell you the outcome, but I’m hopeful. It is just the right mix of connection and effort for me. It intrigues me to see what might come out of it. Think of your favorite writing form, enlist your favorite writing friend, combine the two, and see what you might come up with!
These writing groups are for messy, first-draft writing where the intention is to get “your butt in the chair” and ideas on the page. While these groups all lack the comment/critique component, I am a big believer in getting other eyes and trusted opinions on your work, and there are plenty of in-person and online opportunities for that. Whichever one is your preference, there is great benefit to having others along for the ride alongside you, and what that looks like is for you to choose.
My first mystery novel, A Fire Circle Mystery: A Witch Awakens, about an amateur sleuth discovering her lineage as an Appalachian Granny Witch, comes out in Spring 2025.
By R. David Fulcher, Founding Member of the Old Scratch Press Poetry and Short Form Collective
Floetry (my definition) a written form of expression combining fiction and poetry.
It is uncommon, but not unheard of, for writers to embrace both fiction and poetry. As one of the writers in this category, I often wonder if this is a benefit or a detriment. To a purist, being competent in both could perhaps mean I’m a master of neither, to echo the old saying “jack of all trades, master of none”.
More recently, I’ve decided being fluent in both fiction and poetry is a definite advantage. To begin with, several of the masters of speculative fiction integrate poetry into their work to great effect. Consider these lines of from Stephen King’s novel The Tommyknockers:
Last night
And the night before,
Tommyknockers, Tommyknockers
Knocking at my door.
And these lines from Ray Bradbury’s novel Something Wicked This Way Comes:
By the pricking of my thumb,
Something wicked this way comes.
These are by no means the only examples. Dean Koontz dives into poetic verse within his many novels, and it can be argued that the fantasy writings of the Irish writer and dramatist Lord Dunsany (a possible influencer or JRR Tolkien, discover more here) read more like poetry rather than prose.
Therefore, having made the case for “floetry”, how do I employ it? Primarily I interweave poetry into my prose in two ways:
As bookends to start and end my books, with the remainder of the book being fiction, and
The Pumpkin King and Other Tales of Terror starts with my poem “Eulogy to E.A. Poe”:
Man of dark musings and opiate visions!
Mind of pits and rats,
Black cats and ancestral corpses!
How is it that love sparkled within those dark recesses, Like diamonds within a bedrock of obsidian— That verse sprang from that ebony hand,
As vibrant and unlikely as lilacs from snow?
Tales of cities under the sea,
Of waves weeping softly, “Annabel Lee!”
Did the bells, the bells, the bells, foretell of your demise, Or was it borne on Raven’s wings, thus falling from the sky?
Could it be that your last vision was your brightest?
Oh, soul of all that is night,
Inspire my pen to wail and to write.
In a similar fashion, my book Asteroid 6 and Other Tales of Cosmic Horror starts with the poem “The Outer Reaches of Unknown Kadaath” (Kadaath is a reference to the works of H.P. Lovecraft):
Rest awhile, friend, for it is clear that you have walked far over hill and valley, and penetrated the wild and strange woods, to have happened upon this long-preserved manuscript beneath the moss-covered rocks.
I came upon this very spot, perhaps many years ago now, as just a lad. Here I took my respite, beckoned by a fair breeze sweeping over the verdant fields and a song sung in dulcet tones far sweeter than any produced by mortal throats. I was weary from hiking many miles, and my body eagerly fell into a deep sleep.
A song floated over my consciousness, sung by a thousand child-like voices:
Weary traveler,
Rest your head,
And sleep awhile
Where the faeries tread.
Weary traveler,
Laugh in kind,
And take deep draughts
Of faerie wine.
Weary traveler,
Spend the night,
Follow the trail
Of the faerie lights!
Additional stanzas of poetry are injected into other parts of the tale, with the intent of lulling the reader into a sleepy, dream-like state.
Final Thoughts
So there you have it – a brief introduction into the concept of “floetry” with several examples of usage.
What do you think?
Can poetry and prose peacefully coexist on the same page?
Please leave your thoughts in the comments!
Thanks for reading,
-R. David Fulcher, Old Scratch Press Founding Member
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You’ve published three works. You have the acceptance rate of +-3%. Fed up with the time and submission costs of rejections? Resubmit to a magazine editor who published your work before. This may lead to a relationship with a magazine publisher/editor. Why would you want that? Aren’t editors grinches handing out rejection coal? Some editors are coal distributors, but other offer something you may want:
They publish books in your genre and may publish your book.
They repeat the same writers: either multiple works in the same or different issue. How can you figure this out? If your published work is digital (online), find an author you like, who was published in the magazine you were published in; type their name in “search.” Does the search results list only their current work or multiple works? If only one, try again with at least two different authors you like.
Nominates writers for awards (magazine award, Best of the Net, Pushcart)
How do you know if the editor is interested in a relationship with you?
They accept your work in three days or less from submission.
They locate your work in the first three pages of the issue.
They publish more than one of your works.
In the issue forward, they mention your name.
They ask you to publish previously submitted rejected work from their slush (reject) pile.
Nominate you for an award
The benefits of having +-10 magazines with repeat publications are
Create 120 works a year = 10 magazines * 4 submissions a year * 3 works per submission
Create enough work for a full-length book of +-70 pages
Be selected as a featured reader: Robert is a repeat writer for Oddball magazine, I want him to feature for me.
Be invited to be an associate first line editor of a magazine
Show appreciation for the editor/publisher:
Once your work is published, put a posting on your social media (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok), that announces your publication with links to the publisher’s magazine.
When you read work, say it was published by “editor name” in “magazine name” and announce the magazine’s next publication with their links.
Once you are a repeat writer for a magazine, submit quarterly.
Even yours truly, with over seven hundred publications, only has a +-33% acceptance rate with a new magazine. One of my publication strategies was to create and now maintain a relationship with +-10 magazine editors.
Yours Truly is:
Robert Fleming, a contributing editor of Old Scratch Press
For book lovers, there’s nothing quite like the magic of a book festival. These vibrant events bring readers, authors, and publishers together in a celebration of storytelling, creativity, and community. If you’ve never been to one, here are five great reasons to mark your calendar for the next book festival near you.
1. Meet Your Favorite Authors
Imagine having a face-to-face conversation with the authors behind your favorite stories. Book festivals often feature a wide array of authors—from bestsellers to emerging voices. You can attend book signings, hear authors speak on panels, and even ask questions during Q&A sessions. It’s a great chance to connect with the creative minds shaping today’s literary landscape.
2. Discover New Books
Browsing through endless stalls at a book festival can feel like stepping into a treasure trove. You’ll have access to books you may not find at your local store, including limited editions, indie publications, and advanced releases. Plus, many vendors offer special discounts, so it’s the perfect time to stock up on fresh reads.
3. Participate in Workshops and Panels
Book festivals aren’t just for browsing and buying; they’re also educational. Many events feature workshops, panel discussions, and lectures that cover topics ranging from writing techniques to industry trends. Book festivals are usually free to attend which gives you the chance to attend these workshops for free! Whether you’re an aspiring writer or just curious about the publishing process, these sessions offer valuable insights.
4. Connect with Fellow Book Lovers
If you’re passionate about reading, there’s nothing quite like bonding with others who share your enthusiasm. Book festivals provide a space for literary conversations, allowing you to swap recommendations, discuss your favorite genres, and maybe even join a book club. It’s a community experience that extends beyond the event itself.
5. Support Local and Independent Authors
Book festivals often highlight local talent and independent authors (like me!) who might not have the same platform as big-name writers. Attending a festival gives you a chance to support these creators, discover hidden gems, and diversify your reading list with unique, lesser-known voices.
From meeting your favorite authors to discovering new books and making connections with fellow readers, book festivals are a must for anyone passionate about literature. Whether you’re a casual reader or a die-hard bibliophile, attending one can enhance your love of books in unexpected ways. So, find the next book festival near you, grab your tote bag, and dive into the literary world!
When I first read my great-great-grandfather’s Civil War memoir*, I wasn’t expecting to find stories that would inspire my own writing. But tucked among the tales of battle, violence, and survival was a mention of a woman named “Granny Grills”—a healer who gave him charms for protection and herbal preparations for healing. This mysterious “granny witch” lived in the mountains of East Tennessee, tending to her community with a mix of folk wisdom and the magic of the mountains.
Granny Grills introduced me to the rich tradition of the Appalachian Granny Witches (or Granny Women) who served in the isolated towns with the combined roles of midwife, herbal healer, and preparer of the dead for burial. While inspired by Appalachian folklore, the archetype of the folk healer—often a wise, self-sufficient woman—is found across many cultures, from Latin American curanderas to the hedge witches of England. Each of these traditions reflects our very human need to connect with the earth, heal with natural remedies, and seek wisdom from those who live closest to the land.
We live in an age where technology rules, and I think folk magic endures in literature because it connects us with something deeper and often forgotten: our roots. The figure of the granny witch, like other folk healers, symbolizes resilience, self-reliance, and a deep respect for nature—all qualities we find ourselves yearning for in our increasingly tech-centric world. These characters are timeless because they remind us of the power within ourselves (and for me, this is called intuition) and the importance of connection, whether it is to the earth, our community, or our heritage.
Bringing folk magic into fiction isn’t just about fantasy. It can be a way to explore values like resilience, diversity, and community. Granny witches and other similar folk traditions speak to readers because they represent a balance of independence and tradition. They remind us that wisdom is often found where it is least expected, and that those who honor nature and listen to their own “still, small voice” hold a unique kind of power.
*The Thrilling Adventures of Daniel Ellis: 1861-1865, Harper and Bros. 1867. Available on Amazon.
Ellis Elliott is the author of the poetry collection Break in the Fieldand is currently working on her first cozy mystery novel based on a lineage of Appalachian granny witches.
Poetry is an old art form dating back to ancient Greece. Why has it been with mankind so long? For one thing, writing and reading poetry is good for us. It allows us to manage our emotions which in today’s complicated and divided world can be an overwhelming task. During the recent pandemic many literary journals called for submissions about their experiences during the pandemic. Many poets answered the call, and no doubt felt better for it.
During the months of lockdown, people all over the world lost many things. We were suffering. Some of us lost loved ones, some of us were very ill ourselves. We all lost our normal sense of community, isolated as we were. Humans aren’t meant for isolation. Many people were lonely. Things we enjoyed such as travel, comradery in an office or school setting, had to be put on hold. Writing poetry and sharing poems created a bond among people when it was sorely needed.
As it turns out, poetry can be a powerful healer. Rhythmic language is soothing. Think of a lullaby. Poetry also helps us contemplate and reflect our lives back to us. Through poetry, we learn about different cultures and histories which helps us to stop focusing on ourselves and leads to a better understanding among peoples.
Through poetry we can stop to appreciate and experience what is beautiful in our world or share a poet’s experience with something we are also struggling with. This improves our mood. Poetry is often read to hospitalized children to reduce their fears and worries. Additionally, reading poetry out loud has been shown to slow breathing and help a person relax.
So, three cheers for all the healthy things poetry does for the human body and spirit. During the pandemic I remember reading this famous poem by Maggie Smith. It has stayed with me.
Autumn has always held a special magic for me, a season in which the poet John Keats aptly described as “a season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.”
Indeed, if there is an hour for magic, it strikes in the crisp dawn of an early Fall day. And further, if magic has a language, surely its language is poetry.
So I find this an appropriate time to post some of my own verse (hopefully imbued with magic itself) for your reading pleasure.
The first poem is “Ode to the Night”, and it hints at the darker aspects of this time of year, a time when pumpkins cast you crooked smiles and ghosts and goblins are generally free to roam:
Ode to the Night
To the Night, the Night, the dark delight,
The children sleep soundly in gentle white,
Breathing in time with the Raven’s flight.
To the Night, the Night, the waxen moon,
Audience of one to the witches’ croon,
Driving the tides for the sailors’ doom.
To the Night, the Night, its starlit fires,
Which guide the ghosts from funeral pyres,
Which soften the Harpy to play the lyre.
I hope you enjoyed “Ode to the Night”, and at a minimum it puts you into the Halloween spirit!
My second poem is “Melinda”, a story of lost love, and although not directly a tribute to the season was nonetheless designed to evoke a haunted mood:
Melinda
Sometimes in the lonely hours
I would walk the hill
Leaving the clamor and din behind
For headstones gray and still,
As I neared the place where the dead did lie
I knelt and bowed my head
A fool is he who visits the graves
Without homage to the dead,
‘Melinda’ read the stone I sought
Melinda, my betrothed,
Only a thief as clever as Death
Could steal the health of Melinda, my love
Often I hear Melinda’s voice
Soft upon the breeze
I answer her call of eternal love
And grow hoarse among the trees.
I hope you enjoyed “Melinda”! Last but not least is an ode to a much maligned creature, a symbol of the undead, but in reality a beautiful animal that sustains our ecosystem. This last poem is called “The Bat”:
I am recovering from major surgery nine weeks ago. I have been described by some who are nearest and dearest that I am not just an overachiever, but a classic type A personality. To which I say “Balderdash. Not in the least.” But one thing that has become all too apparent is that I love naps. At last one, if not more, a day. And while it feels like an enforced putting down of my will to write, and do, and create, and clear out, I don’t really care. My body has other plans. This is what my medical team refers to as “rest and recuperation.” Rest. Now there’s a thought.
I’m a writer – poetry, short stories, and an almost completed first novel. In all writing (and my reading) I find that the rest periods allow me, the reader, to think, to consider what I just read. One habit I recently developed is reading my poetry out loud, primarily to myself (unless there is a willing listener close by). This is not a new habit, just rediscovered, after a lapse of more than 50 years. I used to do this in college, for it helped me understand what the writer was trying to get across.
What I found in my personal poetry was timing. which phrases required slight stress, pauses, clear enunciation. And my habit of reading each one thee times allowed me to hear with different ears. The rhythm, the internal stresses, cadence, alliteration.
Poetry has always been a way of understanding the emotional frame of mind of both the poet and the listener. The oldest poetry we have records of shows that the stories and sagas were all oral, as well as aural. They transported the listener into another world, a world of magic, feeling, creation, alternate realities, explanations of heroic journeys.
And reading and hearing poetry aloud gives me a different perspective. I remember my grade school librarian reading stories to us. Magic. We could not get enough. It whetted an appetite for more, for it was a group activity led by an older and wiser person.
And the greatest value in my listening, was when she paused, created a resting spot, and then continued. I can imagine sitting around a night fire, listening to a traveling bard recite sagas. Just for me. It became personal, and valuable, and I was personally included in the vast story.
My current resting spot is in my recliner, head back, legs propped up. Napping away. I am not “shoulding” on myself as much. I am resting more, waiting for the next phrase, the next idea, the next thing I don’t have the energy to do. Resting is good, although it is contrary to my nature. But the recliner is so very comfortable!
OLD SCRATCH PRESS 