Once you’ve journaled with a part for a while, you end up with pages of raw material — a part’s actual words, in its own voice, written without much editing. Found poetry takes that raw material and shapes it into something else entirely. You’re not writing a new poem from scratch. You’re finding the poem that was already hiding inside what a part told you.
(New here? Start with the basics of IFS journaling before trying this technique.)
What Found Poetry Actually Is
Found poetry takes existing text and reshapes it into verse, using the words already on the page rather than inventing new ones. Poets have long done this with newspaper clippings, letters, overheard conversations — any text that already carries meaning.
Applied to IFS journaling, the “found” text is a part’s own words. Maybe it’s a Manager’s defensive monologue, or an exile’s single scared sentence buried in a paragraph. Found poetry pulls the most charged lines out of that raw writing. Then it lets them stand alone, line by line, the way poetry does.
Nothing about this requires you to think of yourself as a poet. The part already wrote the material. Your job is closer to editing than composing.
Why This Technique Works So Well With Parts Work
Journal entries written in a part’s voice often carry emotional weight the writer didn’t fully notice while writing. A sentence like “I just need everyone to be okay so I can stop worrying” can sit buried in the middle of a paragraph, easy to skim past.
Pull that sentence out. Put it alone on its own line. Suddenly it reads differently — not information, but something closer to confession.
That shift is the whole value of found poetry here. It doesn’t ask you to interpret what a part meant. It asks you to notice what was already true in the writing, and let it stand where you can actually see it.
How to Turn a Journal Entry Into a Found Poem
- Choose one entry. Pick something written in a part’s voice — a Manager, a Firefighter, or (with care) an exile’s words.
- Read it once for the lines that land. Don’t analyze yet. Just underline whatever catches you — a phrase, a sentence, a fragment.
- Copy only those lines onto a new page, in the order you found them or rearranged, whichever feels more true.
- Cut connecting words if they’re not needed. Poetry doesn’t require full sentences. “I just need everyone okay” can stand on its own without “so I can stop worrying,” if the shorter version hits harder.
- Read it out loud. This is often where a found poem reveals something the original journal entry didn’t quite show you.
You’re allowed to end up with something four lines long. Found poems are frequently shorter than the entry they came from — that compression is often the point.
Using This With a Client
For therapists, found poetry offers something journaling prompts alone don’t always reach: distance. A client re-encountering their own words, reshaped into verse, often reports something different. It can feel like hearing the part speak, rather than remembering what they wrote.
Introduce this after a client already has some journaled material to work with, not as a first exercise. It depends on there being raw writing to draw from.
Keep client-facing found poetry sessions collaborative rather than directive. Ask the client to choose their own lines rather than choosing for them; the selection process is itself part of the reflection. And if the entry involves exile material, treat the found-poetry pass with the same care you’d give the original journaling — the compression can make an already-vulnerable line land even harder.
This technique also happens to be a foundational tool in poetry therapy more broadly — the formal, credentialed practice this kind of journaling work sits inside of. If found poetry resonates as a clinical tool, it’s worth knowing there’s a full credential pathway built around techniques like this one.
Curious where found poetry fits into a bigger practice? IFS Journaling Training includes found poetry as one of its core techniques. For therapists interested in going further, it also connects into the path toward Poetry Therapy Certification. See what certification is about →