Recently, in my English class, we learned about Black-Out poetry. Black-out poetry is when you take an article, books, existing poetry, or any written material and black out some of the words to create new sentences and poetry. It’s a really fun creative exercise and I enjoyed it a lot! Here’s some of the black-out poetry that I did.
Poem 1:
Poem 2:
Poem 3:
The first poem was created out of an article about basements, the second was about a musical, and the third was about wild turkeys. As you can tell, none of the poems really stick with the themes of those articles, which is what makes black-out poetry so fun. You can play around with your topics and what’s important in your poem.
If you’d like to try black-out poetry here are the simple steps!
- Find an article or piece of writing that you enjoy or would like to try writing with. This can be any article and does not have to align with your end product!
- Start blacking out swathes of text so you are left with words or phrases that you enjoy and you think add to your poem.
- If you find yourself getting stuck or are not sure what to black out, try a pattern! Maybe black out every ten words, then save the eleventh! Even just by trying, you can create something extraordinary.
- You can also try to be artistic! Many poets who do black out poetry drawing pictures or make illustrations out of their work and it can end up looking beautiful.
Have/Will you try blackout poetry? What other kinds of poetry do you like?