BLACK OUT POETRY
I have a deep fascination with the kind of creativity that springs out of spontaneity, curiosity and working with what you have available to you in the moment. Without the pressure of expectation or the need to achieve a particular result, a sweet serendipity often reveals itself, as if it might have been waiting there, hidden, all along.
Black out poetry is word art, made by picking out specific words from an existing text and forming a brand new piece of poetry. The words not needed are painted out or obscured with imagery.
Find a page of writing, from an old letter, a novel, or a newspaper or magazine (that is not too dull or academic) and underline in pencil the phrases or words that leap out at you. Then read through it, adding in additional parts to make it flow and make some kind of sense. When you are happy with your poetry, neatly ring the words that you are keeping and start to cover over the rest, using any medium- paint, crayon, collage to obscure the unneeded words and highlight your poem.
Pictured above, my own piece of black out poetry, backlit by the afternoon sun. That morning, I had been faced with my uncomfortable attachments- to being someone, to being liked. By a process of paring down, peeling back and discarding the irrelevant, blackout poetry reminded me of my true nature and its inherent freedom, beauty and peace. Thank you, Iris Murdoch, for lending some of your words and many apologies for tearing up your book :) As some of it got cropped out of the image, here is the final poem. . made of light and hollow sound I faded, gone away. . I swelled in the pure sky turning dark, and pale- I knew of the beyond . a body electric, conscious, no thought just full and absolute being . breathing deeply, uninhibited, barefoot feeling the precious patterns, I am free; I cannot cease to glow and shimmer #intuitiveart #blackoutpoetry #beyourownoracle #wearemadeoflight #livinglight #truenature #irismurdoch
