My Poetry Contest Entries 2020

Kafka Found

This is my entry into Poets Pub's April contest part II, where the challenge is to write a poem in the format of "Found poetry".

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

The poet finds a source and creates a poem by using only words from the original text - no words can be added. The poet can use all the words from the actual text, or just a selection of them. The idea is to convey a deeper meaning within the text or perhaps alter the message/meaning of the original work.

"Kafka Found" - a found poem based on a letter from the writer Franz Kafka to Felice Bauer, November 1912 (the original letter is included at the end)

I am not crazy,
and I am not sad
I deal with my sufferings
I endure life;

On the train, in my office, at home, in my bed

I receive no letters,
in which you implore
promise of marriage
I feel, in a way, overlooked

Oh, why am I Incapable
of opening your eyes?
And make you fond of me,
for only an instance

Is it all a test?
To which I cannot foresee
a possible solution

If I only had a way
of expressing
that I am serious
That I am good enough for you

Well, I am cured now
My body is strong,
My heart is calm

Fatherhood confuses me
But I shan't abandon it

~

--------------------------------------

Original letter (source: brainpickings.org):

Fräulein Felice!

I am now going to ask you a favor which sounds quite crazy, and which I should regard as such, were I the one to receive the letter. It is also the very greatest test that even the kindest person could be put to. Well, this is it:

Write to me only once a week, so that your letter arrives on Sunday — for I cannot endure your daily letters, I am incapable of enduring them.

For instance, I answer one of your letters, then lie in bed in apparent calm, but my heart beats through my entire body and is conscious only of you. I belong to you; there is really no other way of expressing it, and that is not strong enough.

But for this very reason I don't want to know what you are wearing; it confuses me so much that I cannot deal with life; and that's why I don't want to know that you are fond of me. If I did, how could I, fool that I am, go on sitting in my office, or here at home, instead of leaping onto a train with my eyes shut and opening them only when I am with you?

Oh, there is a sad, sad reason for not doing so. To make it short: My health is only just good enough for myself alone, not good enough for marriage, let alone fatherhood. Yet when I read your letter, I feel I could overlook even what cannot possibly be overlooked.

If only I had mailed Saturday's letter, in which I implored you never to write to me again, and in which I gave a similar promise. Oh God, what prevented me from sending that letter? All would be well. But is a peaceful solution possible now? Would it help if we wrote to each other only once a week? No, if my suffering could be cured by such means it would not be serious.

And already I foresee that I shan't be able to endure even the Sunday letters. And so, to compensate for Saturday's lost opportunity, I ask you with what energy remains to me at the end of this letter...

If we value our lives, let us abandon it all... I am forever fettered to myself, that's what I am, and that's what I must try to live with.