Today, I share the beginnings of a new project: Page Cannibals.

As a result of airing some complaints about poetic quality, my husband made a joke that I should try writing found poetry from something ridiculous — like our 40-year-old medical dictionary, a thrift-shop find originally intended for a furniture project. (I was going to laquer the pages over a trio of wooden trunks . . . my DIY imagination has always far exceeded the reality of my craft abilities.) It currently serves as a piece of decor atop our vintage wooden radio.

I laughed it off at first, but over the next few days, the idea stuck around. I became really excited about it, and decided to make it an entire project.

Each story in Page Cannibals will be two things: the typed text of the found poem, and an image of the blacked-out dictionary page or section. It fulfills my love of dabbling in photoshop in addition to really stimulating my poetic mind.

I really look forward to sharing these poems with you. I might eventually open Page Cannibals to submissions, especially since there isn’t much found or blackout poetry on Medium at this time. I have read some blackout authors, and I would really love to see more.

Although this whole thing was borne of my initial declaration that found poetry is nothing of great quality, I realized my mistake as I researched and wrote my first few drafts. Although the found poetry I’d read thus far felt lazy, that is not the case with the style as a whole. It does take some inspired creativity, but cannibilizing words can have some truly unique and beautiful results.

Join me in this project! Feel free to leave notes, ask me questions. This is only the first stage — the dictionary I’m using is HUGE, there is a ton of room for growth and many, many poems. I look forward to seeing where the Page Cannibals road leads.