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Showing posts with the label Blackout Poems

Blackout Poem 9/10/2020

This came from a NYT piece found HERE , by Michelle Goldberg .

Blackout Poem 8/24/2020

This is from a Washington Post opinion piece by Max Boot , found HERE .

Blackout Poem for 7/27/2020

Today's offering is from an article by Apoorva Mandavilli from the NYT, found HERE .

Blackout Poem for 7/21/2020

I made another blackout poem. This one is based on NYT opinion piece by Jemelle Bouie about what's happening in Portland. The entire article can be found here .

Blackout Poem for 7/13/2020

My blackout poem for the day, based on a Washington Post article found HERE by Eli Rosenberg

Blackout Poem for 7/10/2020

My blackout poem for the day, based on a New York Times piece by Michelle Goldberg, found HERE .

Blackout Poem for 7/3/2020

My blackout poem for the day based on a New York Times piece by Nicholas Kristof found HERE .

Blackout Poem for 6/29/2020

My blackout poem for the day based on a Washington Post piece by Catherine Rampell found HERE .

Up-cycling Reality for the Sake of Mental Health

Lately, very lately, I have taken to creating blackout poems. I was first introduced to this concept in a university Creative Writing course I took a few years back. Then I was reminded of it by reading Austin Kleon's Steal Like an Artist (which, for all I know, is where my instructor encountered it in the first place ... who knows, stranger things have happened). For years I've been writing a poem a day based on five to six random words. I'm such a weirdo I find this sort of thing fun. But, in doing the blackout poetry I am discovering something else - a way to process the news (aka reality) which borders on the therapeutic. I normally get something out of writing a poem - obviously - if that weren't the case I wouldn't do it. But what I normally get is something akin to a purge. Taking a news article and covering things up in order to uncover a way to make it about something else, is completely different somehow. Rather than purging something, it's more like ...