Creative Destruction
Month
Sounds like a cool idea. I’ll try.
Hey that’s cool. Did he give any credit just curious. I’d like to see it.
Well I have only a vague recollection of what source most of my old blackout poems were made from but in general I source a lot from Dear Abby newspaper articles, Rolling Stones music reviews, and The Alchemist. But I will add tags for future poems, thanks.
Hey thanks a lot I appreciate it. I’m glad you started doing some of your own and I actually went looking for them on your blog but couldn’t find them. Send me a link maybe?
Hey there! I am not familiar with the piece you are talking about unfortunately but I like the sound of it :)
I really dig your blackout poetry style, short and sweet! Keep it up, would love to see more!
The Kansas City Star is running a blackout poetry contest and wrote up some good tips for making your own poems, many of them from Newspaper Blackout. I thought I’d share some of them here, along with my own notes. New poems coming tomorrow! —AK
Use the newspaper.. It’s cheap, they make a new one every day, there’s a huge variety of material in a single paper, and people won’t whine or scold you for “ruining” a book.
Loosen up.
When you’re in blackout poetry mode, don’t read the articles as you normally would. Look at the words as raw material. Toggle between part of one article and part of another, looking for words (and images they suggest) that you can turn into something completely different from the topics of the stories. You’re making fiction out of nonfiction.
Set a time limit. (I usually do them on my lunch break or bus ride.)
Some articles won’t inspire you. Move on.
Don’t read the article first.
“I like to think of blackout poems like those old ‘Word Find’ and ‘Word Search’ puzzles we used to do in elementary school — a field of letters with hidden messages to find,” Kleon writes.
Remember that the poem will be read from left to right and top to bottom.
Share them. You can submit your poems here.
Read more tips online or in Newspaper Blackout→
Oh hey there I just saw this message. I think it’s great that you are introducing this to children so young. I would define it as simply as Found Poetry or you could phrase it as recycled poetry that is creating something new from destroying something that has already been written.
For texts to pull from I would try using actual poems and have them start with that. Newspapers may be a bit dull to hold the kids attention.
My favorite method for making blackout poetry is to read the article or source text from the bottom up, or completely backwards, so my mind doesn’t get fixed on whatever it is actually written about. Then I will pick out a few key words or phrases that interest me and try to link them together to create something that has meaning.
I recommend you take a look at this blog post here describing how a lady named Keri-Lee Beasley was teaching her 6th graders about Blackout Poetry using iPads and having them search the internet for children’s poems to edit in the Brushes App.
I recommend you give it a shot yourself to get a better feel for it :) My favorite texts to pull from are classic books, music reviews (especially Rolling Stone), and Love Advice columns like Dear Abby.
Good luck with everything and I’d love to see how it goes.
For me it’s not the method of destruction that is important, it’s the message that’s created in the end. As long as that gets across then nothing else matters.
