4 • ISSUE May 2013
Volume 19, No. 8
DISCOVERING THE ART OF REDACTING EVERYDAY WORDS POETRY IS DIFFICULT FOR most people. Whether it is struggling for a rhyme, or just worrying if that deep, personal meaning is either obscure or too obvious, it is an art form that people tend to avoid. But what if there was a simple and effective way to “write” poetry without ever having to come up with just the right word? In fact, the only thing to consider is which words to discard. Welcome to blackout poetry. The Writing Center at Lamar University hosted a Blackout Poetry Workshop, April 4. “April is probably one of the most literary months,” Jennifer Ravey, Writing Center director,
Story by Andy Coughlan
said. “The week of April 17 is National Library Appreciation Week and April 23 is World Book Night.” Ravey said that when she was asked to organize an event to commemorate the month, she wanted to do something other than a reading. “I wanted to do something more interactive,” she said, “something we can actually do as a group.” Blackout poetry consists of taking a marker to a printed page — a newspaper, magazine or an old book — and redacting, or crossing out, some words on the page. What is left is the poem. “The great thing about blackout poetry is that you don’t have to know how to spell, you don’t have to know how to write,” Ravey said. “The restriction frees you. You are bound by the words on the page, but it also gives you the freedom
not to have to think of them yourself. It’s just creative, innovative and fun. There were a lot of people laughing (during the workshop).” Part of the fun of creating a blackout poem is manipulating the available words, often at the expense of “normal” syntax. “(I was) asked, ‘What do you do about punctuation?’” Ravey said. “Well, you either put it in yourself, or you don’t have it. It gives the poem multiple ways to be read. For example, mine doesn’t have any punctuation. I know where the line break is, but the fact that there is no line break gives a freedom to the reader.” Blackout poetry certainly has its roots in the calligrams and cut up poems of the Dada and Surrealist movements, but writer Austin Kleon is the man credited with the recent popularity of the form. In 2010,
Poem by Ryan Null Poem by Lorin Carrell
