Friday, 5PM EST is the deadline for the August Newspaper Blackout Poems contest. You could win publication and a free book! What the heck are you waiting for?

Enter the contest and you could win a free copy of the book and be published!

Read the official contest rules.

Get out your markers: this is the first of four monthly contests we’ll be running for the rest of the year. For each monthly contest, one winner and three runners-up will receive a free copy of the book, along with the chance to be published in the book!

To enter the contest, you must be 18 and a US resident (sorry to all you young’uns and overseas folk!) One entry per monthly contest.

The two columns of newspaper below are from August 1, 1908, 100 years ago. Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to turn them into a poem.

[download high-quality GIF image] | [download PDF]

Directions

You can go about the creation of your poem in one of two ways:

WITH MARKER FUMES

1. Download the PDF and print it out (you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader)
2. Black out the words in the newspaper text into a poem
3. Scan or take a digital picture of the poem. Be sure it’s readable.
4. Save an image of the poem as a .jpg, .gif, or .png file less than 2MB in file size
5. Send in the file along with the required information using the submission form

WITHOUT MARKER FUMES

1. Download the high-quality GIF and save it to your desktop (right-click save as on the link)
2. Open the GIF with an image-editing program like Paint or Photoshop
3. Black out the words in the newspaper text into a poem
4. Save an image of the poem as a .jpg, .gif, or .png file less than 2MB in file size
5. Send in the image file along with the required information using the submission form

TIPS

• Remember that Westerners read left-to-right, up-to-down. Poems read best if they follow that pattern.
• You can get around the left/right/up/down problem by connecting words with whitespace. (See an example.)
• What you are doing when making a blackout poem, in the words of Allen Ginsberg, is “shopping for images.” Nouns and verbs make the best images.
• Regardless of where it’s located in the text, I always start a poem by looking for a word or image that resonates with me and move from there.
• It’s a lot like a word search.
• You don’t have to use the whole text. What to leave in / leave out / how long is the magic.
• Poetry doesn’t have to be serious!
• Try not to think to hard about it and let it flow! It might take you a bunch of tries. Don’t be intimidated! Anyone can do it!

One winner and three runners-up will be announced at the end of the month, along with a new contest in September.

Help us spread the word! Link to:
http://www.austinkleon.com/newspaper-blackout-poems

Good luck!

Submission form

Read the official contest rules.

Remember: only US residents 18 and older. One contest entry per month, please. Be sure to fill out all required fields and keep your image file limited to 2MB or smaller.

All entries must be submitted by August 22, 2008 (5:00 PM EST)

cforms contact form by delicious:days

Problems with your submission? E-mail: blackoutpoems [at] gmail [dot] com

Yep. You read that right. Here’s the official press release:

HARPERCOLLINS TO PUBLISH COLLECTION OF NEWSPAPER BLACKOUT POEMS

July 8—HarperCollins has signed Austin Kleon to write a collection of his popular Newspaper Blackout Poems for a book due from Harper Paperbacks in September 2009. Instead of starting with a blank page, the Austin-based writer and cartoonist picks up a newspaper and a permanent marker and eliminates the words he doesn’t need. Kleon’s poems, which he began posting on his popular blog, have been featured on NPR’s Morning Edition and in Toronto’s National Post, and have been widely linked to on the internet. In addition to original poems by Austin, the book will contain submissions from his fans which will be solicited through a contest on the author’s website starting in August.

Though he will be updating his site periodically, Kleon will be taking a break from daily blogging to complete the book. Check back on the site in August to find out how you can submit your entry and be published in the upcoming book!

For press inquiries, please contact Audrey Harris at 212-207-7185 audrey.harris@harpercollins.com.

This has been in the works for a couple of months, and it’s KILLED me not to be able to share it with y’all. But now you know. Couple of thoughts:

• The book is going to be made up of completely new, never-before-seen poems. Although it isn’t out until Sept. 2009, the manuscript is due by the new year, so I’m going to be incredibly busy for the rest of the year making poems.
• While I won’t be posting new poems for the next six months, there’s still going to be a lot of activity here on the blog. In August, I’ll have more details about the contest. (So get out your newspapers and start practicing!)
• Obviously, this is huge, and Meg and I are really excited about the opportunity. But, to paraphrase Hugh MacLeod: I’m keeping my day job. The book might sell big, might not. In the meantime, I’m going to keep doing what I’ve been doing: writing, drawing, and blogging.

As always, thanks so much to all of you who read the poems, comment, and link to them. If it weren’t for you and your support, I would have given up what started out as just a writing exercise a long time ago.

Stay tuned!

Test Reel #2 on Flickr

Same as Test Reel #1, but with a different poem at the end, and set to some of my own music so I don’t get sued by the Pixies…

Just a little experiment. Nothing to be taken seriously.

Test Reel #2

some words / for the creator of the universe / who makes it rain / on the baseball game

a big / wide-open space / and a cowboy hat / but / what matters most is / the swagger

Speaking of cowboy hats: this morning at a construction site, Meg spotted a cowboy hard hat:

Also, scanned this out of an old scrapbook:

And, to finish off the theme, let’s not forget one of my first blackout poems:

I’m not so much a fan of the hats, but I definitely need some boots.

partners / that / have an intense choreography / which is demonstrated / on a bicycle / in the most marvelous summer light

“a very old / and well-versed / buccaneer / with an eyepatch / bought the house next door / and reflects / on a liftime / of adventures / if we pour / the wine”

in the near future on an assassination mission / a kung fu master / whose wedding is spoiled / by a posse of gangsters / falls in love / and gets sidetracked / the problem is / that his heart / requires violence

Another goofy one.