I never fancied myself a poet nor enjoyed the poems I had to write for various classes. Writing poetry has always been something I wish I was good at, but, alas, I’m not. Creating lyrical compositions is hard when you have to make sure you’re telling the reader exactly what’s going on without actually telling them. Very confusing and possibly not how to write poems, but that’s just my opinion.
Last year, however, I ran across a form of poetry called blackout poetry. The name tells you exactly what it is. It’s not something you write after having one too many drinks, but a poem created by marking out words in an existing block of text. The remaining words are your poem. I made several poems, but they were packed up and put into storage when I moved out of my college dorm, so here are examples of blackout poetry from other poets.
- Traditional Blackout Poetry
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Blackout poetry was originally created by literally blacking out text and leaving a couple of words and phrases to make the poem.
- Reverse Blackout Poetry
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This isn’t the official name of this blackout poetry style, just one that I created. Instead of blacking out text, the poet circles the words they want for emphasis, so the reader is drawn to those first. I had a friend make a poem like this one; they found the “thesis” of the passage and summed it up with the words they circled.
- Blackout Poetry in Color
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Blackout poetry isn’t always done in black marker. People often use color to help emphasize the meaning of the poems they create. This makes for an aesthetically appealing poem to read.
- Illustrated Blackout Poetry
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People often confuse this with blackout poetry in color, as they share the same concept. The distinction is that illustrated blackout poetry creates an illustration around the words chosen for the poem. It’s similar to the illustrations that accompany Chinese poems that provide the reader with more insight into the meaning.
You don’t have to be a master of words to create poetry. Embrace your inner poet and artist and take a stab at blackout poetry!