Newspaper Blackout by Austin Kleon

Overall- A+ : Newspaper Blackout is like highlighting in reverse; instead of brightening what he  wants to see, Austin Kleon blacks out what he doesn't and makes art of what is left.

Although this style of poetry has been around since the 1760’s, Austin Kleon had the accidental fortune of bringing this to the mainstream market.  To best describe what Newspaper Blackout is, NPR’s Morning Edition explains, “Instead of starting with a blank page, Poet Austin Kleon grabs The New York Times and a permanent marker and eliminates the words he doesn’t need.”  (Eliminates the words he doesn’t need…I love the way that sounds.)

There are over 150 poems but I only talk about 3 for one big reason: finding the Newspaper Blackout poems from this collection wasn't easy. (I know that sounds hard to believe but because this style of poetry has exploded, there are a lot of Newspaper Blackouts out there not by Austin Kleon so I had to try and remember which ones were his...) 

The poems range from hilarious to sentimental and since poetry is as visual as it is auditory, I’ll show you some examples of his amazing Newspaper Blackout Poetry and give a brief interpretation of each. (And in case the poems are hard to read, I wrote the words normally below the poems.)

"His Wife Appears"

"His wife appears, nude in the moonlight, then they have a hot-fudge sundae and do The twist."

First off, I love how the background is not 100% blackened out;  you can see some traces of the previous story, which makes this poetry seem that much more raw and impressive.  This poem itself is fantastic and makes me think of a couple doing exactly what the poem describes! (I can't believe he found THAT in a boring newspaper article!)

"Catching Fireflies"

"Catching fireflies saves everything for one fleeting night. 2 thin circus freaks with unrelenting grins. I remember floating-the play so full of potential, you and me out after the lights."

Gorgeous. This poem is absolutely gorgeous.  I'm not sure if this was his interpretation but having the white spots in the blackness as fireflies really gives the poem dimension and life. It also plays into our childhood memories of the darkness and the fireflies flashing their little lights on warm summer nights; just wonderful in general.

"All You Can Do"

"In love, all you can do is fail so badly the first time the rest you don't mind at all."

Another amazing poem. I'm sure this rings true with all of us; With our first boyfriend/girlfriend, we make the most mistakes but all we can do is learn from them and move on. (That's my interpretation, at least.)

Here's the big question that I couldn't help but wonder while reading this beautiful poetry collection: What the heck were the articles he took the poems from? I'd love to see what the original source was next to each one so I could REALLY appreciate what he extracted from them.  Was it something about politics? An animal rescue story?  Maybe that's Kleon's intention; have the reader guessing and laughing at how he found this poetry embedded in a plain old newspaper article. 

It will never cease to amaze me how the most profound statements in life are hidden between the lines, and thanks to Austin Kleon, he's rediscovered the secret to bringing them back to the surface.

~Shelly-Beans