I have two boys. My older boy is going into his senior year of high school. I won’t tell you his real, given name (although it’s a cool one), mostly because he would kill me if he knew I was telling you about him, but also because no. I often address/refer to him in the following ways: Ra-Ra, Fox, What’s Your/His Name Again? and The Tall One. For purposes of consistency in this blog, I shall henceforth refer to him exclusively as The Tall One.
My younger son is going into the fourth grade. Names for him include: G-Sauce, G-String, G-Funk, G-Love, Gigi, G-Money, G, What’s Your/His Name Again? and The Loud One. I’m aware that I have more names for my younger son than I do for my older, but this in no way indicates a preference for him or an increased amount of love. It’s just that the G lends itself to a greater number of alternate names. However, from this day forward he shall be referred to here as The Loud One. But we’ll save his antics for a later post.
Back to it.
The Tall one took a creative writing class last year and although he did really well in the class, he completed a lot of assignments that he hated and thought were boring, a waste of time or dumb. But here’s one thing he enjoyed and he brought home for me to enjoy as well. It’s called Blackout Poetry, Subtraction Poetry or Newspaper Blackout Poems.
His reads as follows:
There is no point in
being a
winner
So often we’ve heard
about these things
so having a success
is
the reason
we
float
This is one that I made a few minutes ago:
Winds through the summer
flowers I hoped would grow.
Together, they are
somewhere, and thus
like a tiny
earth.
Ever-present, but
never.
It’s good, right?
So, go get your Sharpie, or your felt tip pen and your newspaper or magazine, I’m about to teach you how to do this.
Skim through some articles, (or don’t, you can just dig right into the first one you see if you want.) Start linking words that sound poetic together and cross out, black out or squiggle out the words around it. Keep going until the poem finds it’s ending. Now right it down. Admire it. Post it somewhere. Send it in a note card to your loved one.
This is what The Tall’s One’s blackout looks like:
Here’s what my newspaper blackout looks like:
If you type “blackout poetry” in Google Images, your going to discover that people do some cool designs with theirs. The final products kind of doubles as poetry and visual art. I prefer to just write mine out on a piece of paper keeping the words in the same order, with the same punctuation and capitalization as found in the original sentences. This gives the poem a kind of e.e. cummings feel that I really dig.
Another way I’ve done this, and this is my preferred way, is to create what I’m calling “Freestyle Blackout Poems.” This can be done using any book, newspaper or magazine. In this version, I don’t black anything out. I just scan through the sentences picking out words and writing them down in a journal or on a separate sheet of paper. It’s a looser, quicker kind of style. The only rule I follow is to choose words in order. But you don’t have to follow this rule. You don’t have to follow any rule. You’re not being graded on this. I even think it’s okay to insert or modify existing words so that the poem sounds better to you.
Here’s one I did using Ruth Ware’s In a Dark, Dark Wood
Okay, actually that’s two.
Pretty cool, right?
Go try it and show me what you come up with.
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