It keeps me connected to friends and family, takes me to places all over the globe, inspires me to cook new dishes and foods, and opens my eyes to new ideas.
Ideas like blackout poetry.
So what is blackout poetry? It’s a process where readers create poems by redacting words from texts like newspapers, magazine pages, pages from books, letters, any type of text. When creating a blackout poem, don’t read the article first and don’t read the article as you normally would. The words are raw material and the topic of the article is irrelevant. Look for words and the images they suggest. The poems are read like any other piece of work, left to right, top to bottom.
Austin Kleon is an artist and writer who recently popularied blackout poetry. “I like to think of blackout poems like those old ‘Word Find’ and ‘Word Search’ puzzles we used to do in elementary school - a field of letters with hidden messages to find.”
My first attempt at blackout poetry is "Mind Body Spirit."
been there
frustration at work
stressful encounter with your teenager
hungry
closing in on dinnertime
no idea what to make.
willpower falls woefully short.
snarf down those chips
chomp on those cookies
stop a moment,
think
Wait.
mindfulness
manage stress and emotions
paying closer attention.
We often go through life on auto pilot
mindfulness is an emotional time-out.
slow down and focus on what's happening in the present moment,
tune out the chatter that goes on in your head
avoid those knee jerk responses
get better at staying with your emotions
Mind Body
Relaxation
