KIND WORDS FOR NEWSPAPER BLACKOUT POEMS

Lots of love for the blackout poems floating around the ‘sphere lately.

Wim Lockefeer (Belgium) wrote a nice little post about them on his excellent blog, The Ephemerist:

Austin Kleon is a cartoonist and poet from Austin, Texas who has a quite original and intriguing way of working. He takes a page from an existing book and blacks out words until he finds a new and hidden meaning in the text, using the block of text as a visual and poetic element, on a par with the actual words….Some of the results are hilarious, some are profound and even unsettling, but they are never bland or boring.

And Greg Wind (Newton, MA) wrote a really flattering post over at Radio Exile:

Part “writing with constrictions,” part happy accident, part found art, part design challenge, the images/poems strike you as a tangible form of indie rock. The materials are easy to find, but making it more than a novelty or parlor trick takes a particularly trained eye and a lot of deep-seated ideas that will find expression through any outlet you make available. The expression subsumes the form….Austin keeps it coming from an honest place, and you can imagine that for every piece that makes it to the site, there are a dozen that couldn’t provide the right word or went in a bad direction. The collection in no order other than chronological gives a well rounded and consistent view into a guy most of us would want to buy a beer (or wouldn’t mind getting this round as long as he’s buying the next).

Big thanks to all you other readers, bloggers, and Stumbleupon folks who support my work! I really appreciate it.

UPDATE (5/8): Jason Kottke linked to the poems, and since then a terrific number of folks have pointed this way. Thanks, everyone!