Found+Poems

  GATSBY  I disapproved of him from beginning to end "They are a rotten crowd," I shouted across the lawn. "You're worth the whole damn bunch put together." (p. 162) He had come such a long way to this blue lawn, And his dream must have seemed so close he could hardly fail to grasp it. But what he did not know was that it was already behind him, <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(54, 235, 40);">Somewhere in the vast obscurity beyond the city, <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(54, 235, 40);">Where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night. (p. 189) <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(54, 235, 40);"> <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(54, 235, 40);">He smiled understandingly- <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(54, 235, 40);">It was one of those rare smiles <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(54, 235, 40);">That you may come across four or five times in life. <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(54, 235, 40);">It faced--or seemed to face--the whole external world for an instant, <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(54, 235, 40);">And then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(54, 235, 40);">It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(54, 235, 40);">Believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, (p. 52) <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(54, 235, 40);">Gatsby believed in the green light, <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(54, 235, 40);">The orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(54, 235, 40);">It eluded us then, <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(54, 235, 40);">But that's no matter- <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(54, 235, 40);">Tomorrow we will run faster, <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(54, 235, 40);">Stretch out our arms farther… <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(54, 235, 40);">And one fine morning- <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(54, 235, 40);">So we beat on, <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(54, 235, 40);">boats against the current, <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(54, 235, 40);">borne back ceaselessly into the past. (p. 189)



<span style="color: rgb(250, 170, 71);"><span style="color: rgb(255, 191, 0);"><span style="color: rgb(245, 240, 178);"><span style="color: rgb(252, 252, 182);"><span style="color: rgb(248, 244, 139);"> <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(255, 153, 0); font-family: Tahoma;"> <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(255, 153, 0); font-family: Tahoma;">Her voice is full of money. (p. 127) <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(255, 153, 0); font-family: Tahoma;">It excited him, too, <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(255, 153, 0); font-family: Tahoma;">that many men had already loved Daisy <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(255, 153, 0); font-family: Tahoma;">- it increased her value in his eyes. (p. 157) <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(255, 153, 0); font-family: Tahoma;">I KNOW. <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(255, 153, 0); font-family: Tahoma;">I've been everywhere and seen everything and done everything… <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(255, 153, 0); font-family: Tahoma;">Sophisticated – <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(255, 153, 0); font-family: Tahoma;">God, I'm sophisticated! (p. 22) <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(255, 153, 0); font-family: Tahoma;">Daisy’s murmur was only to make people lean toward her; <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(255, 153, 0); font-family: Tahoma;">An irrelevant criticism that made her no less charming. (p. 13) <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(255, 153, 0); font-family: Tahoma;">-- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool. (p. 21) <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(255, 153, 0); font-family: Tahoma;"> <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(255, 153, 0); font-family: Tahoma;"> A big hulking physical specimen of a- (p. 16) <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(255, 153, 0); font-family: Tahoma;">[Tom] would drift on forever seeking, <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(255, 153, 0); font-family: Tahoma;">a little wistfully, <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(255, 153, 0); font-family: Tahoma;">for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game. (p.11) <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(255, 153, 0); font-family: Tahoma;">It's up to us, who are the dominant race, <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(255, 153, 0); font-family: Tahoma;">to watch out or these other races will have control of things. (p.18) <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(255, 153, 0); font-family: Tahoma;"> It takes two to make an accident. (p. 60) <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(255, 153, 0); font-family: Tahoma;">They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(255, 153, 0); font-family: Tahoma;">they smashed up things and creatures <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(255, 153, 0); font-family: Tahoma;">and then retreated back into their money of their vast carelessness, <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(255, 153, 0); font-family: Tahoma;">or whatever it was that kept them together, <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(255, 153, 0); font-family: Tahoma;">and let other people clean up the mess they had made. (p. 187) <span style="color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(250, 170, 71);"><span style="color: rgb(255, 191, 0);"><span style="color: rgb(245, 240, 178);"><span style="color: rgb(252, 252, 182);"><span style="color: rgb(248, 244, 139);">     <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> We chose to do a found poem for Daisy/Tom and one for Gatsby because they were obviously some of the more important characters of the book. I felt that found poetry would be an appropriate means to providing a quick insight into Fitzgerald’s characters by summing up their actions throughout the novel. Found poetry is formed by taking passages, dialogue, words, and/or phrases from a text to create a new piece of art. I selected some of the more explicit or well-known quotes from the book to give any reader an idea of what Daisy, Tom, and Gatsby were like through the thoughts of Nick, and their own words about themselves and each other. I thought that by piecing together different quotes from the book, the theme or purpose of the characters would be even more emphasized. In the Gatsby poem, all the quotes are either about Gatsby or the ideals that he had. The Daisy/Tom poem starts out discussing Daisy then switches to Tom and then compares them both in one stanza. I choses to use a green light bulb as a prop to demonstrate Gatsby's reaching for the "green light" which in essence is Daisy and the American Dream that he can never quite grasp. I wrote Gatsby's poem on one side and Daisy/Tom's poem on the other side because they too, are searching for that "green light" that perfection. This is proven by the fact that they are reckless; by whatever means nessecary, they are determined to achieve that ideal happiness. -Lauren Dow
 * Daisy/Tom **