Found poetry workshop recycles recipe books into ‘erotic’ poetry

A new workshop has been teaching people how to recycle recipe books and food reviews into poetry.

The first found poetry workshop, run by Polly Hall as part of Literally Shepton, took place on Saturday at Shepton Mallet library.

Ms Hall said found poetry was a form of poetry that used existing text or “found” words to create new poems.

“I have the idea that recipes and food writing lend themselves to quite erotic poetry,” Ms Hall said.

“Look at Nigella, she’s a master at that,” she added.

“The books were going to be pulped so I thought why not make them into something beautiful and people can enjoy it?”

Participants at the workshop use vintage recipe cards and books to make poetry, by cutting out the words or blocking them out on the page to create new sentences.

“I really like found poetry because you already have the words and themes there,” Ms Hall said.

“The workshop is all about people’s own creative process, I just provide the materials.

“People are incredible, they just need the time and space and then they create these brilliant poems.”

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