See also: “I Am So Over The Rainbow“

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I broke down and bought an Iphone yesterday.

Like any tool, first you get it, then you figure out what to do with it.

If you follow me on Twitter, you saw the following 3 images today, all taken real-time with the Iphone camera and posted online with Twitpic (#1, #2, #3) while I was making the poem.

When does the poem become the poem? When you make that first connection? (Here, it was linking “dead. Now what?” and “Wichita” and then finding “ding” in “including”.) When it’s completely blacked out, “set in stone”? What about leaving behind evidence that could point to other, better poems? Does seeing the process kill the magic?

All questions that popped in my head. Also: what else could we do with this?

What about crowd-sourcing? What if I got stuck on a poem, took a picture of the article, and asked Twitter what my next step should be? Who would the poem belong to?

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Pre-order the book

This is poem 8 out of 30 celebrating April as National Poetry Month (Inter)national Newspaper Blackout Poetry Month!

There’s nothing especially remarkable about this poem, except for the fact that I did it live in front of a camera. Because I don’t keep track of time while I’m making them, I never really know how long these things usually take—but this one took about 17 minutes, which I think was more of a result of nerves in front of the camera than any poetic ingenuity.

Here’s the making in 224 frames:

see it bigger

And here’s a time-lapse video:

Making a newspaper blackout poem (time-lapse video) from Austin Kleon on Vimeo.

Just a little experiment. Hope you enjoy it.

TODAY’S SHOUT-OUT! goes to Drew Myron, who took a stab at his her (sorry, Drew!) own blackout poem. Rock on, Drew!