One of my techniques is the cutting apart of texts and rearranging of the words. The making of the poem comes in using all the words (and only those words) from the original text in a different order. Here is a poem based on the description of a dance in a butoh performance I saw on the 14th.

Original Text:

Original Text, from the dance program “An Evening of Butoh” (February 2004, BeBe Theater) “K’eng-San-Ku” by Julie Becton Gillum, danced by Butohmoshpit/Jenni Oldham

"Based on a Chinese myth in which this deity of the privy was really a mortal woman, the second-ranking wife of a sub-prefect. In a fit of jealous rage, the first wife killed her by throwing her into the privy-pit on the day of the feast of the lanterns. Women make offerings to her on the fifteenth day of the first month asking for her revelation of the future."


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My Rewrite:

Into Enough

the privy (her revelations abased
in this myth) was really a mortal woman,
asking of the Chinese a deity for her jealousy.

the first of her offerings, of her fits, in which
the privy-pit, (second-ranking first wife
of a sub-perfect lantern), killed the day
of the feast by throwing the wife into the future,

makes women rage on the fifteenth day of the month.

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Cheating in the rewrite:

(in to became into) (on of became enough) (a based became abased)