First, grab a Sharpie. Full of ink. Black as night. Then, find a newspaper or old book and tear out a page. Smooth it out flat and start reading. Take in the whole, untouched set of words. Uncap the Sharpie and begin. Line by line. Word by word. Letter by letter. Mark out what you don’t want, leaving behind what you do want. Black out poetry. It’s the art of rearranging. Reinventing. Refreshing. Breathing life back into words that have collected dust.
I’m going to make one right now. “College edition.” Just for kicks, here is one of my old study guides. Proof that I study. Sometimes.
This one was challenging, especially because I forgot to read the whole page first;) I ended up reading as I went, so I lost some of the variety I could have had by reading further ahead. One way to push the boundaries of creativity is to copy the sheet of paper before it’s been marked. Copy it as many times as you’d like and then create different poems from the same set of words. It is wild how many new poems can be formed. Try it!
I like to believe that we all have a little bit of poetry aching to escape our little ‘ole hearts.
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