AUSTIN KLEON

Here’s a cool little slideshow of eight graders doing newspaper blackout poems…

Today the poems were featured on NPR’s Morning Edition:

Read Between the Lines to Find Texas Poet’s Verse
Morning Edition, May 9, 2008

A poet in Texas is blacking out words in order to write. Instead of starting with a blank page, Austin Kleon grabs the New York Times and a permanent marker — and eliminates the words he doesn’t need. He recently transformed an article about a piano concert into a poem that begins: “Forget about trying to speak … the image is the travelogue.” The newspaper ends up more black than white, and shows another way to read between the lines.

My wife and I are huge NPR junkies, so this was quite a Friday treat. Welcome to new visitors, and thanks again to everyone who’s spread the word about them! You guys are awesome.

PS. Did this one on the bus this morning.

Welcome to all new visitors!

I stitched this together from two poems from my files…

“It ain’t cheatin’ if there ain’t no rules.”

An arming scene of sorts:

Cutting strips of New York Times at lunch. (Thanks to Adam for the donation!)

this one is dedicated to lynda barry and her new book which looks amazing

pretty much a paraphrase of this page:

Lots of love for the blackout poems floating around the ’sphere lately.

Wim Lockefeer (Belgium) wrote a nice little post about them on his excellent blog, The Ephemerist:

Austin Kleon is a cartoonist and poet from Austin, Texas who has a quite original and intriguing way of working. He takes a page from an existing book and blacks out words until he finds a new and hidden meaning in the text, using the block of text as a visual and poetic element, on a par with the actual words….Some of the results are hilarious, some are profound and even unsettling, but they are never bland or boring.

And Greg Wind (Newton, MA) wrote a really flattering post over at Radio Exile:

Part “writing with constrictions,” part happy accident, part found art, part design challenge, the images/poems strike you as a tangible form of indie rock. The materials are easy to find, but making it more than a novelty or parlor trick takes a particularly trained eye and a lot of deep-seated ideas that will find expression through any outlet you make available. The expression subsumes the form….Austin keeps it coming from an honest place, and you can imagine that for every piece that makes it to the site, there are a dozen that couldn’t provide the right word or went in a bad direction. The collection in no order other than chronological gives a well rounded and consistent view into a guy most of us would want to buy a beer (or wouldn’t mind getting this round as long as he’s buying the next).

Big thanks to all you other readers, bloggers, and Stumbleupon folks who support my work! I really appreciate it.

UPDATE (5/8): Jason Kottke linked to the poems, and since then a terrific number of folks have pointed this way. Thanks, everyone!

fear of open spaces: agoraphobia
fear of the influence of the stars: astrophobia
fear of outer space: spacephobia (this one unconfirmed by the OED)