Hey y’all,
I got the weird urge last week to make one of my newspaper blackout poems. There was a time when I made 2-3 of these things a day, and now I’m not sure if I’ve made one in 3 months. I like having these things to fall back on when I’m blown out or I just want to do something different. They were, after all, inspired by writer’s block, and they’re still here for me whenever it hits…
One of the things that has freed me up when making these things is that I use a dry erase marker and overhead transparency film when I’m first trying to come up with the words I want to use. (Some people think this is “cheating,” which is funny to me, because I didn’t know there were rules?) Not taking a Sharpie to the page right away makes me bolder, I think — I start faster, I circle words quicker, and I don’t worry as much about the results. It’s more playful.
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