I think it’s just starting to settle in how long this quarantine will be. It has been just a few weeks, and it’s already getting to people. It’s extremely hard to have your life completely disheveled from one day to the next. Many are choosing to cope with this in different ways. Some are working out, some are doing TikTok dances and some are snacking like no tomorrow. Although I am guilty of all previously mentioned coping mechanisms, I have also found myself turning to blackout poetry. Blackout poetry is when a writer takes a piece of work and blacks out words until they are left with a poem. Although I am just an amateur doing it for fun, I thought it would be nice to share some of the poems I have created in this quarantine.
Conventional Art
This is the first blackout poem I did. It is not from my time in quarantine, but I thought it would be nice to see where my inspiration came from. Although I think it could be up to your interpretation, my goal in this piece was to highlight the uncertainty of life. We often stay up all night worrying about certain things that “pain the human mind.” Life is so uncertain, but it’s one of the things that makes it exciting and worthwhile.
Circles
This piece depicts a relationship that seems to endlessly go in circles. The partners can’t seem to let each other go even though their fights seem to always be the same and “so predictable.” Instead of trying to find someone new, it’s easier to stay with someone you think values you or at least used to. Sometimes you search for the signs to stop even though you’re blind to them.
Quarantine
This piece highlights the positives of quarantine. Now that people have so much time, everyone is being creative through many mediums. Youtubers are creating more work, people are writing, others are learning new hobbies. Although it sucks to be inside constantly, having so much time has resulted in an incredible boom of human creativity!
The Betrayal
It’s unclear what the person in this piece has done wrong, but I wanted to highlight the guilt she feels and the betrayal the other person felt. I think in life we always hurt someone intentionally or unintentionally and regret our actions. Seeing the aftermath of the pain we’ve caused is often the instantaneous karma of our actions.
Perfectly Imperfect
An internet post once put a name to a common feeling. This feeling is when you look at the people around you and realize they are living lives as complex as your own with different memories, friends, thoughts, traumas and more. The internet post titled this feeling as sonder. This is the feeling I tried to capture in this piece. The people around us have the freedom to do whatever they please, everyone has their own events and excitements going on. It’s such a beautiful thing to realize. However, the world isn’t perfect. Some people have it harder than others. Some are facing hidden struggles. They are broken, but that is a beautiful thing too.
Although I am no master of poetry, I will continue to turn possibly the most boring book of all time (An Abundance of Katherines) into a book of blackout poems. I hope that you too can find a new hobby in these hard times to help express and ease your mind!
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