A Writer’s Lament, by Todd Hogan – A “Found” poem

Posted: September 17, 2016/Under: poem/By: Todd Hogan

I awake after a night of anxious dreams to discover that I had not yet been transformed into a monstrous, verminous Franz Kafka. A screaming comes across the bedroom.

Happy writers are all alike; every unhappy writer is unhappy in his own way.

Call me Melville. Catch-22 was love at first sight. All Vonnegut happened, more or less.

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in Torrance — They threw me off the hay truck about NaNo.

This is the saddest story I have ever written. I have never begun a story with more misgiving.

My soul swooned slowly as I heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of our “the end,” upon all the living and the dead.

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were flashing thirteen.

But I reckon I got to light out for the Anthologies ahead of the rest, because some editor she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me and I can’t stand it. I been there before.

So I beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the pages.

It is a far, far better thing that I scribble, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better denouement that I go to than I have ever known.

“Yes,” I thought. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”

yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

Image by Charles Stanford is licensed under Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

Found poetry is a type of poetry created by taking words, phrases, and sometimes whole passages from other sources and reframing them as poetry (a literary equivalent of a collage) by making changes in spacing and lines, or by adding or deleting text, thus imparting new meaning.

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Todd Hogan

Todd Hogan practiced making believable stories from pieces of evidence presented to juries. Later, he investigated multi-million dollar claims for nationally for several insurers, argued before arbitrators and mediators, and negotiated complex settlements among parties at odds. He’s been a member of the Writing Journey in Illinois, and Green River Writers in Kentucky, where he’s attended several writers’ retreats with New York TImes best-selling authors and editors. He regularly attended the University of Iowa Writer’s Festival for many summers, meeting writers from across the country.
Todd has published two articles in the Defense Counsel Journey, “Defending the Transactional Legal Malpractice Case,” and “A Client’s View of Law Firm Change: Opportunities for Improvement.” Through the Writing Journey, he’s published “TIme Machine Redux” in the anthology, Stories from Other Worlds, and “Five Hostages” and “Demanding Answers” in the anthology, Voices from the Dark.

A Writer’s Lament, by Todd Hogan – A “Found” poem