WARNING: Collage poetry can be quite messy, and requires space. Collage poetry can also be addictive.
Tools required:
Paper/cardboard for background
Double-sided tape/Glue
Words – sourced from magazines, newspapers etc.
There are a couple of different approaches to collage poetry and these can be swapped depending on your mood or aim in creating a collage poem.
1. FOUND POEM
- create a poem based on the words available to you
- scatter the words over the table, and allow the poem to emerge from the words.
- Consider the visual layout of the poem
- Collage poetry is not just about the text but about how the poem looks on the page.
1. THEMATIC
- Collect words along a similar theme and then use to create a poem.
- E.g ‘I said No’ – variations of the word ‘no’ were collected for weeks before the poem was created.
- Pregnant and paranoid just emerged when the word ‘pregnant’ kept showing up in my word collection.
VISUAL PARAMETERS
- Construct your poem according to set visual parameters
- e.g The poem must be all black text.
- All red text.
OTHER PARAMETERS
- Use text from only one source e.g one magazine, a pamphlet, a brochure.
TECHNIQUE
- Have several poems on the go at the same time. If word doesn’t fit one poem, it may fit another.
- Play with the word order.
- Look for unusual word combinations
- Rearrange the layout a couple of times before you start committing the word to the background.
- Use good, strong, visual text
- Think about how it will reproduce if you photocopy it.
- Consider including images as part of your poem.
MOST OF ALL,
Have fun!
