Found poem from Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes by Edith Hamilton
I persuade the King
it is no misfortune for me to die.
They spoke to each other in hurried whispers:
“No. I love you–
I will not leave you here to die alone.”
You cannot abandon
what men say.
Their hurried whispers abandon me.
All call me a coward.
Say “I will not leave you here to die alone.”
Say “I gave my sister to you to protect.”
Say “You cannot abandon her.”
Hurried whispers.
A letter in her hand.
He let my messenger go,
I am sure.
I persuade the King
it is no misfortune for me to die.
Halle Preneta
3 Questions for Halle
What was your process for creating this work?
This poem was actually a found poem assignment for one of my first college English classes. I pretty much took the words from the passage I chose and moved them around until the poem felt complete.
What is the significance of the form/genre you chose?
This poem is a found poem, meaning the poem was created entirely by moving words of an already written passage around to form a completely different poem. It’s important because it shows that important topics can be brought up in any passage and any poem, no matter what and where we pull it from. Poems are in anything, we just have to take the time to look for them.
What is the significance of this work to you?
This piece is significant to me because it’s about a topic that is still relevant today, women’s fear of men because of their actions. I see this poem as a woman supporting another woman, something I feel like we don’t have too much of in our current world climate. Seeing other women support each other, especially in this type of way, is very uplifting and motivating to me and getting to write a poem about the topic meant a lot to me.
Halle (she/her) enjoys writing short romance, sci-fi, and horror stories along with poetry and gets her ideas from random life experiences and fanfiction. When she’s not writing, she’s either watching YouTube or playing Animal Crossing. Her Twitter handle is @YaTheatreNerd and you can check out more of her work here:
https://sites.google.com/view/halle-preneta/home
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