Found Poetry for a Friday Night

I've read better explanations of found poetry than this Wikipedia entry, but it will give you the sense of it. Essentially, found poetry is exactly what it sounds like: poetry you find, rather than poetry you create.

I don't mean to give the impression that it is merely accidental, nor do I wish to take away from the discernment of the finder. As Oscar Wilde argued in The Critic as Artist, art is only half-formed by its creator. The remainder is forged in the mind of the audience. In the case of found poems, it takes skill to discover the diamond in the coal mine. After all, most writers (present company excluded) are horribly boring and their work does not lend itself to poetry, intentional or otherwise.

Poor translations are usually good places to look; instructional manuals for foreign products are a goldmine. One example that will almost certainly lose its effect out of context continues to ring in my head eight years after the fact. On the way home from studying abroad in England, I flew home by way of Gatwick. I walked on the moving sidewalk, carrying my luggage and the anxious feeling that I was undergoing some major transition. My senses were highly tuned. As the sidewalk disappeared under the floor, I heard a repetitive - but pleasant - female voice (intended, presumably, for the blind) narrate my life:

You're nearing the end
of the conveyor.
Start walking. Now.

I'm still not sure why, but it was empowering.

Anyway, I just noticed a mailer that my mom had tacked to her bulletin board. She volunteers at the local food pantry and this particular sheet displays the work schedule for the year. On the side, where the margin has constricted the length of the lines, is the found poem below, transcribed without a single change. I call it

From the Desk of God the Bureaucrat, A Memo Re: Suicides

Some who have been
regulars did not re-sign,
but I assume you want
to continue. If not,
please call me.