Blackout Poetry
Black out words in a newspaper until a poem emerges.
Blackout poetry is found-poetry for people who don't trust themselves to write from scratch. You take a newspaper, magazine, old book page — any prose you have around — and black out most of the words. The ones you leave form a poem. It's part editing, part treasure hunt, and the finished piece looks like redacted government files pretending to be art.
How to start
- 1Rip a page from a newspaper, magazine, or old book you don't love.
- 2Scan the page. Circle 5-20 words that catch your eye — no rules.
- 3Black out everything else with a thick marker.
- 4Read what's left. It's a poem. That's it.
- 5Do one a day for a week. Pin them to a wall.
What you'll need
- An old newspaper or bookEssentialFree
- A black SharpieEssential~$2
Where to learn more
Plot twists
Ways to spice this up when the basics get boring.
- Use only legal contracts or terms-of-service pages. Corporate speak becomes oddly beautiful.
- Blackout a whole novel chapter. What remains is a condensed version.
- Only keep words under 4 letters. See what survives.
- Color instead of black. Watercolor the parts you're erasing.
The page gives you all the words, so no blank-page paralysis. Pure pattern recognition — you just spot the poem that was hiding.
Austin Kleon's 2010 book 'Newspaper Blackout' kickstarted a global movement. He started it because he had writer's block and a stack of unread New York Times issues.
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