Blackout poetry is a way of creating new works of art without starting with a blank page.
Below, you’ll find a creative prompt. All you need to do is cross out some words and leave others legible to create your own original work. At the bottom of the page you can see an example of how a blackout poem works.
From It Lasts Forever And Then It’s Over, Anne De Marcken (2024)
| This haunting tale of life in the afterlife was one of the best-loved novels of 2024. |
Use this as a starting point for your blackout poem
From It Lasts Forever And Then It’s Over, Anne De Marcken, 2024
Mitchem says I’m in denial. That I am depressed because I am indulging in a sense of loss instead of wonder. “Embrace your new existence,” he says. I picture myself trying to do this with one arm.
When I was alive, I imagined something redemptive about the end of the world. I thought it would be a kind of purification. Or at least a simplification. Rectification through reduction. I could picture the empty cities, the reclaimed land.
That was the future. This is now.
The end of the world looks exactly the way you remember. Don’t try to picture the apocalypse. Everything is the same.
How does a blackout poem work?
In a blackout poem, you crossout words in a prompt text to create your own original artwork:
Original Text
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
Blackout poem
Wisdom
Was was nothing like
The noisiest authorities
Write in the Head 