Tex Norman

Create A College Poem



Posted: Thursday, October 13, 2011

by Tex Norman

I started doing something new.  It is only new to me, of course.  I consider myself both a writer and an artist.  This new thing combines both loves.  I call it collage poems.

I start by finding words and phrases.  This is not a ransom note.  I’m not cutting out letters because then the words would be my words.  I’m lifting words out of context and arranging them into a new context.  I went by the half price book store and bought a bundle of old magazines for $5.  I took books I was about to toss out, and started cutting phrases out of them.  I get those free tabloid publications and even news papers and I cut, snip, and save.

Next put a blank page out and start picking phrases and mix and matching them.  The Oklahoma Gazette goes great with stuff cut from Us, Time and Cosmo.   I find two blank sheets works best because I’m finding stuff that connects, in more than one area of thought.  One may be about relationships, and the other about God.  I’m not really picking the subject matter, I am discovering the subject matter.

I move the phrases around.  Sometimes I need a pronoun, or a conjunction.  I flip through my magazines until I find just the right one.  You could use an X-ACTO, but unless you have a cutting board of some kind you risk cutting more than you intended.  I use scissors and when I’m ready to fix the words to the page I zip the back side across a glue stick and down it goes.

It is OK to punctuation, and capitalization.  Actually the spacing on the page can serve as visual punctuation.   If you just love an entire quote, well, move on.  You aren’t gluing down someone else’s thoughts.  These are your thoughts.  You discovered the thoughts.  You are using other people’s words, but then, we all do that.  If you don’t believe me look at the dictionary

Once done, consider publishing them or selling them.  I created a blog for mine.  There are a number of places that give you FREE blog space.



You could also publish or sell your collage poems at sites like:  flickr, imagekind, folkart, etsy, artbyus, or artflock.

Try it.  You'll like it.
Tex Norman is a social worker, currently working at the Oklahoma DHS Abuse and Neglect hotline. He interviews people reporting abuse and/or neglect of children and vulnerable adults and writes a narrative. The narratives (and demographics) are used to initiate investigations of the allegations. He says it is like writing 8 to 10 stories a day. In August 2012, he will have been married to Kathie for 40 years. He has a son Ryan who earned a PhD from Princeton and he is now a scientist doing research in molecular biology. Tex spends his free time working as an artist and writer. He has one art site, and a blog that might be of interest: http://tex-norman.artistwebsites.com/ and http://collagepoetrybytex.blogspot.com/
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