Blackout Poetry

 For our neighborhood Creative Club, we focused on Blackout Poetry this week!  I had never heard of blackout poetry before, and am so glad my co-teacher Emily introduced me to it. Basically, you take a found book, newspaper, or magazine page, circle words you find interesting and find connecting words to make it a poem. You then blackout, or cover the other words on the page, making your poetry pop!  As an added bonus, it also includes recycling materials which is the best kind of art project!

Here is a short video from Austin Kleon, an author who uses blackout poetry to overcome writers block (I may have just bought his book of Blackout Poetry after viewing his videos, and it is fantastic!)

If you have some extra time, his TED X talk is worth a listen too, and explains the history of blackout poetry:

There is artistic freedom in blacking out your poetry, you can use just black marker or add art to your design to embellish it more.  All of our artists (ranging from Kindergarten to High School) loved this project!