Blackout Poetry! Yes, No, Maybe?

Blackout poetry is a form of found poetry where you take an existing text, like a newspaper article, an old book page, or even a legal document, and "redact" everything except the words you want to keep. Instead of starting with a blank page and adding words, you start with a full page and take away the "excess" to reveal the hidden message underneath.

Some examples:
Sixteen Blackout Poems
Everything has been saved from a wreck
Declaration

Personally, I think blackout poetry is a fun exercise, though I haven't written much - what are your thoughts?

ah, the old "i'm a kidnapper but don't have a blank piece of paper, just this news article from last week" trick

ctrl + a

^ dropping this here because I'd still LOVE to see someone else give this format a try! Similar to blackout poetry but with an html twist! xD

Truthfully, I had forgotten all about blackout poetry. But I am fascinated with it! I find it amazing how people find poetry in every place, even in the midst of someone else's thoughts and words. I also find it interesting to know what piece is being blacked out, and how that ties to the poet & the blackout poem itself. I may try it myself, I think it could be a fun NaPo experiment.

i've never heard of blackout poetry but it sounds super fun!

Love black-out poems - fun examples too!

I love doing this to wikipedia articles articles especially!

-> watercolor flowers & other pretty fading things (my garden of eden one from napo '24)

-> you can also do a blackout poem in reverse where you make it into a kind of found poem where you write your commentary as poetic footnotes, margin notes, or in brackets within! I did this to a Pew Research Article about Home -> anchors tied to paper boats (napo '22)