Blackout Poetry

What is Blackout poetry?

Blackout poetry, also known as "found poetry" is when you pick-out few words that catches your interest as you skim through a newspaper, novel or an article. Then you redact the rest of the text with a permanent black marker (hence; "blackout" poetry), leaving only those words visible, to create a whole new piece of poetry that may or may not be related to original text at all.

Although the idea of newspaper blackout poetry traces back to 17th century, it only became a trending popular form after 2005 when a Texas-based writer and an artist, Austin Kleon started posting them in his blog and in 2010 when he published his book "Newspaper Blackout". He described blackout poetry as "It looks like as if the CIA did Haiku"

How to write a Blackout poem?

• Take a newspaper, article or a novel and a black marker
• Scan through the text for catchy words that grabs your interest. Keep in mind the theme you are going for with this poem.
• Circle out the words you want before redacting the rest of the text
• Without changing the order of words use few linking words from text to make your poem flow 
• You may create a short coherent narrative or a long story if you prefer
• Instead of simply blacking out the text with a black marker you may draw visual arts and paint over them.

Example of blackout poetry

Below are few examples of blackout poems by the famous author Austin kleon.

Note: None of the poems we present belong to us. We present an organized record and analysis of them. All copyrights are reserved to the original author and we are not using plagiarized work. The originality of the writes is verified to the fullest extent we can.

Tips to write a Blackout poem

• Try not to read the text thoroughly and just skim through it side to side or from down to top.
• Keep in mind the theme you are going for to sculpt this poem
• If you are going for the traditional method, all you need is a black permanent marker or a sharpie marker
• If you feel inspired then let your creativity flow and create a colorful visual art 

Blackout poetry is a proven method to cure writer's block. This is the time to bring new purpose to those novels and magazines gathering dust in your shelf. So let's grab a one and start blacking out or creating an art over the words.

Cheers!

-Fathimath (member of PoeTree FoRest)