New Art for Paid Subscribers

Thank you for your support!

May 05, 2025

Some of you have said you’d like more glimpses “behind the scenes.”

So, here’s how I find ways to create when words don’t come to me.

My favorite method is making “blackout poetry.” You take a piece of text, such as a newspaper or magazine article, and black out all but a few words of your choice. The remaining words make short statements or poems.

The beauty of blackout poems is that you don’t have to pull words from the void. The words are already there — you need only select from them. Blackout poems bypass writer’s block by removing one of the biggest challenges in writing.

Here’s a basic example by Austin Kleon, who introduced me to the form:

Blackout poem: Photo of a newspaper with the words blacked out except for "Creativity is subtraction"

Here’s one I created:

Blackout poem: Photo of newspaper article with all the words blacked out except “Being in a relationship is fun, Sharing feelings is trickier.” — “Being in a relationship is fun, Sharing feelings is trickier”: a popular theme in novels and most fanfiction. Created by Mosaic of Minds using a Vanity Fair celebrity interview, with the traditional Sharpie.

Blackout poems can get elaborate and artistic, like this one I found on Pinterest:

Blackout poem, background is a drawing of a night sky. Text reads: "Each night he stayed there looking up at all the beauty." — “Each night / he stayed there/ looking up at all the beauty”: Artist unknown. If you know who created this, let me know so I can credit them and link back to their webpage.

(I haven’t made anything that elaborate, but I have used colors, shapes, and textures).

I will share my blackout poems with paid subscribers. You’ll receive them roughly weekly.

I also collage. I love combining disparate scraps of images to capture a feeling or an idea. Creating a collage is a messy microcosm of my thought process, visualized.

Paid subscribers will also receive collages periodically. Here’s an example of the style…

Collage made of photos and magazine text. Shows a woman with arms raised against a backdrop of leaves and below, a woman making "snow angels" on a flower. Text: "RECONNECT with NATURE come back new" — Collage by Mosaic of Minds, from the time of COVID-19. This was one of my first; please ignore the little gaps between some of the pieces, and the bit of background visible around the edges.

I’m looking forward to sharing these perfectly imperfect art-snippets with you.

Do you enjoy or create either of these forms?

For more blackout poetry…

The clearest explanation and set of examples probably comes from the New York Times, which held a “make a blackout poem” contest for teenagers in 2019.

Newspaper Blackout, a dedicated website, features examples from multiple artists.

Austin Kleon popularized the form. His blog features many blackout poems, and he also published a book of them, Newspaper Blackouts. He describes it “a bestselling book of poetry made by redacting newspaper articles with a permanent marker.”

Why Writers Need Rituals: An Invitation to Dream

Writing is a Journey to Wonderland

Discussion about this post