"FOUND POETRY"

is a curatorially convenient phrase but belaboring. It's like someone asking "Where is God" (assuming God can be located at a specific somewhere) when, for those who believe, it's already recognized that God is everywhere. So when someone talks about *found poetry*, there's a[n ancient] logic in it to which one draws attention to because the act of living has created an unnatural separation between everywhere and Poetry.

But it bears repeating at times, and it's the way one reminds that's judged by its aesthetic effectiveness. So I liked, as soon as I heard of it, Bill Allegrezza's project of drawing poems on found objects... and then volunteering to send it out to whoever is interested in receiving such. That's Poetry in action, a poetics of attention and engagement with everywhere. Like this piece(s) which arrived in yesterday's snailmail, and which I'm blessed now to have cheerfully lighting up Galatea's poetry bookshelves:



I actually got four of those red small wheels. Here's a sampling of text, with the caveat that I may not read the handwriting correctly (and it's a nice layer, too, that Bill's handwriting and choice of pens/ink shows up charmingly against the objects' wood and painted wood surfaces):

...gathered in piles
near road ends in
heat and anticipation
for what would be
a first love adventure
without the
ceremonial anxiety

These found objects certainly do not carry "ceremonial anxiety" about their transformed (re-discovered?) existence as poetic objects. They just ARE. Like Poetry, comfortable in their everywhere-ness.

Thank you, Bill!