Is This A Poem?

You have your own oceans 

Your mind is quick and sharp and strange.

You don’t have to be afraid of the oceans inside you.
Let the tides do their work. The moon grows
bright then dark, and then bright again. 
Do not dwell in too much darkness.
Do not make a home in deep caves of loss.

Tell yourself.

If there’s no way to predict the thing that comes next,
what freedom would it give you to imagine this week and next?

Your ambition doesn’t
have to be greedy to hold its own wild energy.
It doesn’t have to be noisy to change
the world around you. Embrace the messy. 
Remember to pay attention to where
sorrow lives inside you, and where in
your body you store love. 

You don’t have to think your body into clarity.
You might feel the change roaring in the distance
and the change rumbling under your feet. What urgency
has held you tight and what are the words you want to hear?
You’ve traveled a long way through a world that is not your own. 

Push your way back.

You have your own landscape, mountains and forests
and plains full of life. You have your own oceans
uncharted and blue and wild. You know the shape
of the world you move through. 

Show up and just be you.

— a mash-up by Drew Myron of horoscope lines
from Madame Clairevoyant and Holiday Mathis

I'm in a quandary: Is this found poetry, a cut-up poem? Is attribution enough? My mind runs and reels. To borrow, to take, to remake — is this moral, correct, kind? If assembly is required, is it art or is it theft? 

Dear Reader, is this a poem and can I call it mine? 

Comments

[Sandy]

Drew, it's in the same category as a cento: From the Latin word for “patchwork," the cento (or collage poem) is a poetic form made up of lines from poems by other poets. Though poets often borrow lines from other writers and mix them in with their own, a true cento is composed entirely of lines from other sources. Interesting to me how metaphorical the horoscope language is.

[Carrie]

Yes, it is a poem. Yes, you can call it yours -- in fact, you should. In the foodie world, it is fascinating to watch what one chef does with the same set of ingredients as another receives. A talented chef can make a delicious and interesting meal from the oddest combination of ingredients. You have taken an odd combination of ingredients and made them interesting and delicious in a poetic way. I'll need an intermezzo before the next course. Maybe a little stark haiku?

[Drew]

Carrie,
YES, I love the poetry as meal perspective. A lyric poem followed by a haiku, followed by a sestina, then a lune, then . . . served with wine, of course: a heavy cab? a light pinot gris? a pinot?

:)

[Drew]

Hi Sandy,
I do love a cento, and other "lifted" forms. . . And yes, the language of these horoscopes is just beautiful.

Thanks so much for weighing in. Nice to have a writer tribe. :)

[Lisa]

Yes.