It’s been a little while since I’ve shared any blackout poems… because it’s been awhile since I’ve done any. However, this one seemed to jump out at me this morning, so I’m letting it loose on the world before I think better of it.
It’s been interesting working on this project and trying to find a story or poem on each page of this book without getting tied up in the context. One of the things that I’ve had to make peace with is that every page has the potential for success and failure.
There’s definitely some pages that I feel good about and some where I’m almost positive I’ve blown it. That’s not to blame the raw material available, it’s my ability on that day to sift through and find the pieces that will result in a poem.
Here’s another one from my blackout poem experiment using a book as source material rather than a newspaper or magazine.
One of the toughest things for me to overcome has been re-reading the pages for the story as I’m working on them. I’ve found that the poems make themselves clear more easily if I’m looking for words rather than the context of the overall page or article. Trying to find that first word or phrase and then the next one that connects – that’s the fun part and it brings a degree of clarity. Re-reading just muddies the waters.
One of my goals this year is to have a creative routine that will start my days off, using the “make before you manage” ethos I gleamed from Tim Ferriss and mashing it up with what I remembered from Austin Kleon’s morning routine. The idea is to have a set time each day before starting work that allows me to check the creative box, and is somewhat in line with why making your bed every day is a good thing – no matter what else happens that day, I did something that fed my soul.
One of the factors involved is that I am self-employed and work out of my home. My office is a downstairs room on the opposite end of the house from my bedroom – so there is a degree of separation, but those lines can blur pretty quickly. At some point, I’ll have to do a quick tour of my space that, in spite of not being on par with many writer’s rooms or studios, might be of interest to someone.
Continuing my new blackout poem project utilizing Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Adjustment Day as my raw material and coaxing a poem out of every other page through redaction. This is page 7.
So this should be an interesting project…
Somewhere in 2019, I picked up Adjustment Day by Chuck Palahniuk and decided to give it a try. It might have even been in the 50-cent bin or it might have been discounted down to a couple bucks – either way, I didn’t pay full price.
I really liked Fight Club and Survivor, thought Diary was pretty good too, and then wandered away from his catalog. And so here I was several years later thinking I ought to check in and see what he’s up to these days.
Maybe someone out there likes this book, but I didn’t. In fact, the only reasons I kept reading until the end was that: 1) some hope there’d be some big twist at the end that would redeem everything that came before it, and 2) to see just how bad it’d get. At some point, it turned into a re-watch of Showgirls. There’s confusion, shock, horror, humor, and then just sadness for everyone involved. I’d throw shame in there, but since I’m publishing this on the internet, I guess that one can be safely scratched off the list.
Anyways… I was looking to create a new blackout poem for Word Wednesday and realized I’d neglected to buy a newspaper. Being January and snowing, I started looking around the house for something to use. Then it came to me in one big, beautiful, vandalistic thought – I’m totally going to ruin Adjustment Day. Well, maybe not ruin it since Chuck seemed to do a fair job of that in the first place, but at least cross a bunch of stuff out.
So my idea is this… I’m going to take the 316 pages of this novel and try to turn them into 100 some odd poems (depending on blank pages). Only one side of the page can really be used because the permanent marker seeps through, but I’m thinking of some other ways I can work the backs of pages too. At the very least, I’ll get back my investment in paper, right?
So here it is, page one. Enjoy.
Fresh off the presses, or should I say, permanent marker.
I’m still working the kinks out of my morning creative routine, trying to find something that feels natural, feeds my creativity, is easily repeatable, and is something I actually want to do. Maybe a daily blackout poem would be a good addition to the mix?
As usual, thanks to Austin Kleon for the intro to this particularly type of poetry.
All of the previous blackout poems I’d posted were created a few years ago and had been living in a folder, gathering dust. In a burst of inspiration last week, I decided to spend some time working on some new blackouts and this is the first one I’m sharing.
Full disclosure: this was posted on Thursday and backdated to Wednesday. Perhaps that’s sacrilege to some folks, but this is my little red wagon and I’ll pull it how I like. Enjoy.
Another blackout poem for Word Wednesday.
At some point, I have to get back to doing these because they were intensely fun to create and felt more like play than almost any writing I’ve done lately. All of these that I’ve posted are from several years ago.