Easter

Today's poem 'Easter' is a found poem - something I try to do daily. When sharing found poems and rewrites on Vocal I often am requested to share the original for reference so have put the workings below:

'Easter' is taken from a free pamphlet 'The Easter Journey', I picked up from our local community shop. I used four consecutive words on each odd numbered page. I usually set a sentence number (sentence number 5 on each page for example) but as this was a small pamphlet and I didn't want to spend much time rewriting I went with what felt relevant to the theme, the rhythm and the fit of words.

Working through this (note - I am an atheist and added to this don't actually believe in Jesus) I was for the first time struck with how personal and moving the stories of Jesus and his sacrifices are to his believers. I wanted to find a way of the final poem representing that:

1. Story of a journey
2. Shout and sing as
3. A whip from some
4. Woman came in with
5. Your love for one
6. Eager to eat this
7. Bowed his head and
8. At midday, darkness fell
9. Faces to the ground

Rewrite one - Rearrange sentences

• Shout and sing as
• A whip from some
• Story of a journey
• Bowed his head and
• Eager to eat this
• Woman came in with
• Faces to the ground
• At midday, darkness fell
• Your love for one

Rewrite two - Subtract a word from each sentence

• Shout and sing
• A whip from
• Story of a
• Bowed head and
• Eager to eat
• Woman came in
• Faced the ground
• Darkness fell *
• Love for one

* Two subtracted

Rewrite three - Add a connecting word (if possible) to each sentence

• Shout and sing about
• A whip from a
• Story of a man
• Bowed head and still
• Eager to eat when
• A woman came in
• He faces the ground
• As the darkness fell
• With love for all

Final Rewrite*- As above but add, subtract - whatever feels right

* Nothing written is ever final

Easter

Shout and sing about

a story of a man,

bowed head and still

he faces the ground

as the darkness fell

with love for all