collages

Annie Dillard, in her book Mornings Like This has collected a number of found poems, poems created by splicing and rearranging other texts. As Dillard writes, “by entering a found text as a poem, the poet doubles its context. The original meaning remains intact, but now it swings between two poles.”

​The following selection is from her poem Junior High School English, whose words were taken from the textbook 
Junior High School English, For the Eighth Grade, 1926.


A CHALLENGE TO YOUR SPIRIT

Girls and boys of America, you
Are the hope of the world!
You can’t evade it, young America.

And are you going to go on dancing
And spinning on your ear?
What are you thinking about, sitting

There staring into the dark?
Haven’t you been lying around long
Enough? Shouldn’t you go to work?

Find as interesting a subject as possible.
Write as vivid a sketch as you can
Of a person who attracts you or an animal.

I hope my collages follow in this same spirit.