On noticing, by Verlyn Klinkenborg

Is it possible to practice noticing?
I think so.

But I also think it requires a suspension
of yearning
and a pause in the desire
to be pouring something
out of yourself
into the world,

rather than siphoning the world
into you
in order to transmute it
into words.

Everything
you notice
is important.

Let me say that
a different way:
if you notice something,
it is because it is important.
But what you notice
depends
on what you allow yourself
to notice,
and that depends
on what you feel authorized,
permitted
to notice
in a world where we’re trained
to disregard our perceptions.

Being a writer
is an act of perpetual
self-authorization.
No matter
who you are.
Only you
can authorize yourself.

You can do that by writing well,
by constant discovery.
No one
can authorize you.

No one.

This doesn’t happen overnight.
It’s as gradual as
the improvement
in your writing.

Verlyn Klinkenborg, from Several Short Sentences About Writing (pp.37-39)

Some found poems 

August, by Tove Jansson