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!

While re-reading Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s wonderful book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, I came across this passage on working crossword puzzles. I think he could just as well be talking about making blackout poems:

There is much to be said in favor of this popular pastime, which in its best form resembles the ancient riddle contests. It is inexpensive and portable, its challenges can be finely graduated so that both novices and experts can enjoy it, and its solution produces a sense of pleasing order that gives one a satisfying feeling of accomplishment. It provides opportunities to experience a mild state of flow to many people who are stranded in airport lounges, who travel on commuter trains, or who are simply whiling away Sunday mornings.

Csikszentmihalyi then goes on to talk explicitly about poetry and writing:

What’s important is to find at least a line, or a verse, that starts to sing. Sometimes even one word is enough to open a window on a new view of the world, to start the mind on an inner journey….

And the joys of being an amateur (why leave it to professionals?):

Not so long ago, it was acceptable to be an amateur poet….Nowadays if one does not make some money (however pitifully little) out of writing, it’s considered to be a waste of time. It is taken as downright shameful for a man past twenty to indulge in versification unless he receives a check to show for it.

Read more about flow.

UPDATE (6/30/08): Weird timing: a reader from Tacoma, Washington messaged me and said her local newspaper, The News Tribune, is running a blackout poems contest. (I’ve archived the full text in the comments.)

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”

It seems to me that the language of poetry is very dependant on setting up images and juxtaposing them against each other. A poet will create an image in the first two lines of his poem and then he will create another in the next two lines, and so on. I do find this jumping from image to image in poetry to be a very interesting, comic-like element. Many poems are almost like word comics.—The cartoonist Seth on poetry and comics

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this recently, but in the beginning, I called my poems “Newspaper Blackout Comics.” The first batch I ever did explicitly juxtaposed image and text:

Other examples: here and here.

My old creative writing teacher used to tell me that a poet “thinks in images” and a fiction writer thinks in terms of “character and plot.” I’m not sure it’s that cut and dry, but I think it sheds a lot of light on why I find traditional prose fiction so incredibly hard, and poetry and comics so incredibly fun.

And speaking of poetry and comics, one of the main characters in Chris Harding’s excellent WE THE ROBOTS webcomic has started a poetry website:

So hilarious, and so true. Be sure to visit his site for even more.

And speaking of mean comments, here’s a new phenomenon for me: mean-spirited spam.

As if it wasn’t hard enough for me to get up in the morning!

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.