The summer of 2011 I stumbled upon Austin Kleon‘s work sitting on a shelf in a bookstore. Not heeding the title of one of his books, Steal Like an Artist, I immediately purchased that along with his work of poetry, Newspaper Blackout. I loved the poems he created with a permanent marker and the restrictions of a newspaper– the surprising twists and truths coming out from the somber printed news as though he was panning those articles for gold.
When I returned to school that fall, I organized a Blackout Poetry event for Grapheon, our school’s literary society, by raiding the recycling bins and buying a few dozen sharpies. It turns out that I do know how to steal like an artist after all. Today I am sharing two of my blackout poems that I have kept over the years. Only one is from a newspaper, the other from an old children’s book on astronomy. In a way, they are both about the stars.
Nebulae
Kylie Louise McCormick
a distant sky revealed remote galaxies like ours or closer The entire region on faint glow All long-exposure fluorescent lamps do not cause starlight scattered Some are dark visible as silhouettes two parallel "coal sacks" near the star
Virgo
Kylie Louise McCormick
Taking refuge away from your best Problems accomplishing little.