What’s worse than staring at a blank piece of paper, thinking about what to write?
When you think about writing something, you think about adding words to a page, right?
But what if I told you, you can come up with an original poem by removing words from a page?
Last week, I was reading ‘Steal Like an Artist’ by Austin Kleon. Among his beautiful illustrations and practical words, I loved his black out poetry.
Fascinated, I headed on to google and found that the first book he ever published was a collection of his Black Out poems called ‘Newspaper Blackout’.
He accidently made his first black out poetry when he was going through a major writer’s block. But little did he know that he would not only rediscover a whole new type of poetry but also write a book.
What exactly are blackout poems?
It’s the precise way you can steal like an artist. It’s when you create a poem without writing words. You make something unique from a piece of writing that already exists.
What do you need?
- A newspaper or magazine
2. Black brush pens or highlighter
3. A little bit of time
Step 1
Take a newspaper, magazine, old book that you’re comfortable write on. You can even print out a piece of text from a novel or even take an informational text.
Step 2
Cut out a snippet. Preferably one that’s not too short. A page of a book, an article from the magazine or newspaper.
Step 3
Go over each word and select words that you like. Words that reach out to you.
You don’t need to read the passage. It’s actually better if you don’t. When we read something, we take each word in a particular context. But each word has many meanings. They can be used in completely different contexts, convey unique stories, be associated with different things.
Draw a box around the words that catch your attention. Go over the passage many times- front to back, back to front and choose as many words as you like. You can even choose a part of the word.
Step 4
Once you’ve chosen the words, look at only those words and try to weave them together. Box out some other words that you might need- smaller words like ‘as’, ‘the’, ‘if’, ‘you’ to combine your thoughts seamlessly.
Step 5: Blackout
Once you have an idea, black out the rest of the passage until only the boxed words are visible.
This will give you an idea of the words you can play around with.
Look at the chosen words in different ways. Choose different combinations of words until you find something satisfying.
You’ll be completely mind blown.
When I wrote my first black out poetry, I know I was mind blown. I haven’t written a single poem in my life. I didn’t know I could write something like this.
And do you know where I’d taken the text from? The sports section!
Did I steal? Like an artist!
It’s original. But I did not think of it consciously. I chose words I liked and this is what came out.
Even if you haven’t written anything, you can write black out poems. And trust me, the result will make you proud.
Try it out and have fun!
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