Journey of Love

Poetry is a form of writing that can prove to be difficult for many people. About five years ago, I found myself wanting to challenge my high school students with poetry, but I did not want to just read a poem and have them analyze it. I was sitting at my dining room table with my computer sitting in front of me when I began my google search for poetry lessons. After weeding through lesson after boring lesson, I came across a YouTube video of an artist that created blackout poetry out of old books and paint. When I watched his video it inspired me to create a lesson of Blackout Poetry for my students. This was a way for me to integrate cross-curricular subject matters into my classroom as well.

I must say, one way to challenge yourself is through blackout poetry. Blackout poetry is very creative and challenging. I have found that one can use newspapers, books, or even create digital blackout poetry. I have not experimented with the digital blackout poetry yet, but in the near future, I will attempt to integrate digital blackout poetry with my students since we will be teaming up with our music, and digital arts department for the fourth quarter. I am looking forward to this wonderful opportunity to collaborate with other departments.

Blackout poetry can lead to many creative art pieces. When I first started with blackout poetry, I was using colored pencils or markers to color around the words that I wanted to “pop” out from the page. I wanted to make sure that I was using the same art supplies that students were to show that they are able to create their poetry and art with the same supplies as me.

How I create blackout poetry: I like to use old or damaged books compared to newspapers and I have several books around my home and in my classroom. First, I look at the page and find words and phrases that “pop” off the page or speak to me. Secondly, since we read from left to right and from the top of the page to the bottom of the page, I like to follow the same format. However, I have seen others not follow the norm and create poetry that has arrows or links drawn to show the path of the poem. Next, I lightly underline the words first then I can erase them if I do not like what I have. When I am happy with my poem I erase the boxes or underlining as I am I blacking everything out. When I am “blacking out” all by my words and phrases for my poem, I use markers or colored pencils. When I use markers, I use Sharpies. Lately, I have been trying to make my pieces more “art” focused and I have been experimenting with creating a drawing that connects to my poem instead of just “blacking out” everything except the words of the poem on the page.

Over the past five years, I have integrated this into my curriculum and the astounding artwork and creative poetry pieces that have been submitted by my students have been breathtaking. Each year I have created an example to model, and the one pictured is my latest creation. My students loved this piece so much that I framed it.

I have many blackout poetry pieces that I have created over the past five years that I do not know what to do with them all. There are nights that I cannot sleep or times when my emotions are just too much and I spend hours creating and pouring my heart and soul into blackout poetry. I love that I am able to relate my feelings through poetry and incorporate art to complete the look of the piece.

The art side of blackout poetry can be easy or difficult. For starters, if you have any old books or newspapers around the house and need something to do with them just take some time to create a poem from one of the pages. You will be amazed at the final product. Granted it can be challenging at first, but when you find your groove your final project will be amazing.

#Blackoutpoetryrocks