A NEW BOOK EDITED BY JONAS ZDANYS (BR):
“I am delighted to announce that Unlocking the Word: An Anthology of Found Poetry is coming from Lamar University Literary Press on July 1. It is the first major anthology of “found poetry” and includes work from 54 contributors from across the country. The poems in this book present a look at how we might use words not originally meant to be a poem and turn those words into a poem. The underlying principle of this book is that a “found poem” works because the poet who discovers it is able to find poetry in ordinary language – even in language that at first seems to struggle against any semblance of the imaginative voice – and thereby discover the aesthetic possibilities of all words no matter where they originally appear.
The sources of “found poems” in this anthology are remarkably varied. They include textbooks, literary and scientific monographs, essays, newspaper and magazine articles, letters, emails, advertisements, speeches, and many other non-creative publications. They all reveal the joy of the discovery of the transformative aesthetic elements in everyday language and show us that poetry resides everywhere around us. It is a fun read and an important statement about the nature of poetic language. Unlocking the Word will be available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, ABE Books, Powell’s, Indiebound, and your local independent booksellers by July 1. I hope you will all add it to your collections!”
Jonas Zdanys