Found poetry is created by using existing written sources; letters, newspaper articles, diaries, transcripts, interviews, advertisements, etc.

The source document can be from any time period, from very old to very recent. I prefer older sources, when letter writing was an art form in itself and the language was a bit archaic and Byzantine, but found poetry is limitless in its sources. It can be created from anything; Twitter feed, E-Mail, Trump campaign speeches. It is only limited by the poet's imagination.

The poet selects these sources and edits them into a poem by gleaning phrases and providing a structure and punctuation to produce a work that conveys a deeper meaning hidden within the text. The completed piece is like a literary collage. Words, sentences, and paragraphs can be dropped to shape the poem and punctuations may be added, however no words are added, the poem is constructed from the actual text only. The resulting poem may be almost verbatim to the original document or a hundred words out of several thousand.

These poems provide an insight into the human condition. The results can be humorous, sad, insightful, ironic, or even profound.