Tag Archives: erasure poems

Blackout Poem Maker

In one my previous posts, I mentioned how I integrate literary arts in the form of erasure poem in my both English and Turkish classrooms. Now that we have an idea of found poetry, erasure and blackout poems, I will introduce you to a new online tool “Blackout Poetry Maker“.

3 sample texts are available on the website to work on. We can also paste the text of our own choice on the box given. After that, we select the words that we want to keep. Then, click “black out.” We can save our poem as an image with a click on “Render Square”.

Text Source: Pride and Prejudice

We can ask our students to create their black out poems to practice the target language by considering some grammar objectives. We can ask them to have some specific structures learned in class such as Relative Clauses, Noun Clauses and Passive Voice. This activity also gives them the chance to practice vocabulary (word formation, collacations, adjectives and adverbs etc.) in a creative way.

Let me remind you the steps we follow while creating our blackout poems:

“In the end, creativity isn’t just the things we chose to put in, it is the things we chose to leave out.” -Kleon

Austin Kleon Blackout Poems

 

ERASURE POEMS

“Creativity isn’t just the things we chose to put in. It is also the things we chose to leave out. Or black out.”

To learn more about blackout poems, you can watch a YouTube video featuring Austin Kleon, the author of “Steal Like an Artist” and “Newspaper Blackout”. In this video, he explains how he started creating blackout poems by erasing words from an existing text and using the remaining words to create a poem.

  • To create their own poems, students will need a text such as old book pages, magazines, or newspapers to work on, and circle the words they have chosen in the order they appear on the text.
  • After selecting their words, students will piece them together to form lines for their poems. Finally, they will illustrate their poems.

Allow your students to revel in the process of being creative!

Erasure poems created by English language learners:

Marron 5: She will be loved

Eighteen trouble with her

she spends everyday
in the pouring rain.
She wants to be loved
But she feels insecure.
Rainbows compromise us anytime with love
and she knows who you are.
She falls on my window
with the broken smile.
Don’t try to say goodbye
Rihanna: Diamonds
Dance wait for you
Live the power in music.

Imagine
young leaders
getting young forever.
Some are melody
They stay like dimonds.
Adventures we forgot
are true.

 

Erasure poems created by learners of Turkish language:

Sertap Erener: Mecbursun

İmkânsız olmaz

Eğer aklımda

Sen olsan.

Bir yıl dünyayı bırak

Sonra sev.

Bin dolan

mahşere,

Ben basayım ferman

Nil Karaibrahimgil: Kanatlarım Var Ruhumda

Ben hiç kalamam

Sen de konuşma

Hayat sonuçta

Böyle

Böyleydi

Geçmişe çağırma

Yol karanlık ruhumda

Gel vazgeç

Boşuna kalbini sarma.

♥ I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to Patricia Sobral, Anna Santucci Leoni, and the class of POBS Artful Teaching (Brown University; Spring, 2016) for the inspiration.