Engaging the Unexpected 

Working with found language allows us to make a literary collage, as we take language from its original context and create anew on the blank page, in order to reexamine phrases or words we might have become numb to or complacent with. An excerpt from C. D. Wright’s brilliant book Cooling Time comes to mind when thinking about the urgency of scrutinizing language from the institutions, platforms, and structures of power we engage with every day: “If you do not recognize the terms peacekeeper missile and preemptive strike as oxymorons, your hole has already been dug.”

In the workshop I facilitated, titled “Engaging the Collective: Lyrical Voices of the Internet,” we utilized found language to see where moments of the lyrical, human voice cracked through the algorithms. The language we worked with came from Google searches and online product reviews, two places where the confessional voice is unexpectedly found. 

Years ago, I became mesmerized by a Freakonomics episode titled “How Big Is My Penis? (And Other Things We Ask Google)” wherein the expert being interviewed had been utilizing Google search data in his research. This research uncovered that people often went to Google in search of answers for things they were embarrassed about, such as medical issues, or, even more strangely, some were using Google not to ask questions but to confess something, to scream into the void. 

This confessional way in which people use Google fascinates, scares, and bewilders me. Start typing into a Google search bar and you’ll find everyone’s depressed, no one knows what to do in love, how to file their taxes, what cancer looks like, or how to use the post office. Alright, maybe these aren’t totally surprising results, given how alienated we are from one another and the institutions meant to serve us. But it’s worth examining the kinds of questions and phrases that are common to most of us, yet we tell Google instead of each other or the relevant professionals (perhaps pointing to the larger troubling trend of distrusting experts, and an indictment of the failed U.S. medical system). 

If these Google confessions interest you, too, try the following prompt to incorporate search results when crafting a found-language poem:

Use the Google search bar on your computer or phone and begin to type in any phrase you’d like. For example: “What happens if,” “When should you,” “I am afraid,” “Can you love” or any other starting phrase you want, to see what Google suggests completing the phrase or question with. Copy and paste these collaborative phrases (partly your search, partly Google’s suggestions) into another document. 

You can organize the language you find in any way you’d like. You may want to just collect phrases that interest you in some way, or you could collect through a theme (searches that relate to mental health, or one’s love life, or being a college kid or a new parent, etc.). You could also arrange them to tell a story or build a persona: someone falling deeper into an addiction; someone becoming more “serious” about the person they’re dating; someone deciding whether or not to move or to make some other major life change.

In addition to Google searches, online product reviews are another unlikely source for found-language poetry inspiration. As an indecisive person without a lot of extra cash, I’ve found myself reading hundreds of product reviews before making a purchase. But I was surprised by how much I enjoyed these little blurbs, for similar reasons as the Google searches: there were pieces of confession and honesty that I couldn’t turn away from. I’ve read the story of a woman whose clothes were scorched off in a car crash, but her eyeliner remained flawlessly in place as they pulled her out from under the vehicle. Five stars. A man who claimed a particular king-sized mattress saved his marriage, while also advising no one to try to fight with a beautiful 5-foot, 11-inch redhead. Five stars. A lovely buyer who, while expressing her gratitude for her new citronella candles, ended up reminding us we should not take today’s technological advances for granted, and that to some, color TVs were only a dream. Five stars. Some even used metaphor to get their point across. As a way of conveying an item’s comfort, one reviewer wrote: “THIS CHAIR IS A GIANT SLEEPING PILL.” It’s beautiful.

These reviews reminded me of C. D. Wright’s “Personals,” where the speaker transgresses our expectation of what one might share about themselves in an advertisement for the self. The review space has become a place for people to share their experiences—perhaps the last place where people who don’t consider themselves readers or writers recognize that storytelling is powerful. There is humor, grief, disappointment, anger, insecurity, relief, and ultimately something undeniably human in this space meant to evaluate an item. 

If you’d like to work with language found in online reviews, try one of these prompts: 

1. Look up an item you purchased online recently, or go onto Google Maps or Yelp to look at a place that holds some meaning for you (a restaurant, ice cream shop, bar, old workplace, school, zoo), and comb through the reviews that were left there. See what “lyrical” or “confessional” voices you might find there—moments where the review reaches beyond what we might expect the scope of it to be. Copy and paste, or write down these moments on your page. Feel free to play around with the arrangement of these found confessional lines, or include lines from multiple different review sources. You could even create your own personal through this assemblage, inspired by C. D. Wright’s “Personals.” 
2. Write your own review of a place or object. It may be helpful to make a list of every detail you remember either about your experience(s) there or in your usage of the item. No detail is irrelevant. Be as honest as you can, as if relaying these details to a trusted friend. 

It feels more important than ever to say what we mean, and to be honest about our emotions and experiences so that we may resist and build together. Google searches and online product reviews provide a small window into seeing we aren’t alone—from the dull glow of our screens, we can reawaken and find each other again.