they swam deep

Blackout poetry

I’ve been meaning to start a monthly art club for a while now, but I kept thinking of huge projects - either entire businesses or exhibitions, and also I’m not a fan of crafts - I just don’t have the patience to knit, I can’t think of anything more painful than coloring books, and painted planters etc. look horrible, but I think I’ve finally found a few good projects, yay!

So 2025, let’s make stuff - starting with blackout poetry - instructions and advice below. The idea is each month I’ll post a project - something fun and easy, or information about an art type for you to try out later (ex: film photography). I’ll share my examples, and you can share yours too - maybe on notes? We’ll figure it out…

Blackout poetry

Instructions: (the way I did it)

1. Choose a page of text - newspaper, menu, magazine, etc. I photocopied pages out of a book and I fully agonized over choosing which books because I wanted to make sure it would have words I liked. In the end, I went with Women Who Run with the Wolves and Speeches that Shaped the Modern World. Later I’ll try more art books and fiction. The only genre I’m staying away from is poetry because it feels a bit weird making a poem out of poem - I imagine the result would be a watered down less good poem, but who knows, try whatever.

2. Choose words and phrases you like and circle them with a pencil (so you can erase the circles later). I started from the middle, went down, then back up, and basically skipped around the page to avoid creating anything too linear.

3. Cross out the rest - do it any way you like. I went with a thick black marker because it’s my first time, I like the look, and honestly I was being lazy ha. I don’t hate the end result, but I did end up marking off a little of my words which was annoying. Then erase the circles, and now you’re done.

4. Bonus step - Photoshop to make it prettier like I did - I amped up the contrast and cleaned the background.

Thoughts - Fun! I ended up photocopying a ton more pages because I can see myself doing this almost daily. I guess this could be similar to coloring books for some people. For me, I like the results and there is an almost tarot effect where it’s like a hidden message becomes known. Neat.


References:

I made you some poems - I discovered blackout poetry from

Austin Kleon

, and I think I found him from Morning Brew - so many good subscriptions.

Mary Ruefle on her erasure poems - good quotes, I feel the same.

Dead eyes, eat hearts, can't lose - my other newsletter where I mentioned blackout poetry and other “neat things” that relate in some way - there always seemed to be a hidden theme in those articles. It would come out to me later when I was reviewing it - almost the opposite of blackout poems.