I created my found poem from a transcript of Donald Trump’s speech about building a wall at the southern border, between the U.S. and Mexico. While I was creating this found poem, I knew that I wanted to focus on what was happening to the people, instead of the actual physical creation of a border wall. I immediately cut out all parts of the speech that had to do with the construction of the border wall and its cost. Then, I took all of the instances where Trump referred to people, both illegal immigrants and american citizens, and collected them all together. Since I was trying to focus on people, trying to emphasize the fact that we are all people, I started the poem with the word “who.” I wanted to ask a question. I tried to imply, who are we? I then put a list of different words used to describe people, trying to group them all together. But in the section after that, I asked “who” again. This time, I separated words and phrases where illegal immigrants were referred to and where Americans and America was referred to. This was intended to show the separation that is already there, without the border wall. We are all people, but we are separate.
In the second section of my found poem, I took phrases and paragraphs and blacked out certain parts of them. Again, I was trying to focus on the similarity, on the fact that we are all people. I cut out any references to who was being referred to in these sections. The “266,000 arrests” or the “killing, beheading, and dismembering” are all events that have happened, but we do not know to who. Did it happen to the immigrants? Or to the citizens? Is it more justifiable if it happened to immigrants? Is it worse if it happens to citizens? Again, I ask “Who”. After that, I ended the poem with the phrase that ends all presidential speeches: “Thank you and good night.” This felt like a powerful closing. It was powerful enough for the president to use, than it was powerful enough for me to close the poem with. Thank you and good night.
