Poetry Challenge Week Four: Blackout Poems

 It’s week FOUR of the Weekly Poetry Challenge, and this week is all about blackout poems! A blackout poem is created by taking a block of text—like from a newspaper, magazine, or book—and “blacking out” everything except the words you want.

Here’s a blackout poem I wrote:

Created using the book MAKE BLACKOUT POETRY by John Carroll

Read some black out poems!

• Here are some blackout poems by author Austin Kleon.

• Examples of student-created blackout poems.

• Check out this Pinterest board for more examples.

Write a black out poem!

When creating your blackout poem, you may to start with a pencil and circle or block around the words you want to keep for your poem. Then, once you’re happy with your poem use a sharpie to black out everything you don’t want. Blackout poetry is a great visual, but you can also type out your poem when you’re done to make it easier to read. Need a little help? Here’s a video by Austin Kleon on how he makes blackout poetry.

If you or your kids write blackout poems this month, we would love to see them! Share them in the comments, email them to us (readdiscussdo @ gmail dot com), or tag us on Instagram. If you share them on social media, use the hashtag #RDDPoetryChallenge.

---

This is the final challenge for poetry month! We hope that you will share some of your poems with us so that we can feature them in a special newsletter next week! If you would like your child’s poem (or your poem) to be featured, email us (readdiscussdo @ gmail dot com), let us know in the comments, or message us on Instagram! Have fun writing!