Black out poetry. @japhofin8or inspired.
Me.
Become the masked arrested individual,
Before.
The rumours spread whisperingly.
Arose a buzz of disapprobation, then of disgust.
A phantasm, a painted appearance, a masquerade, the night unlimited.
The figure gone beyond the indefinite.
The heart reckless, no emotion. Lost to life, no jest made.
Now that costume, the stranger, the figure. Gaunt, shrouded in costumes grave. Mask concealed corpse.
The scrutiny, difficult yet endured. The revellers, the mummer gone, as to assume death.
Faces besprinkled horror, when eyes fell.
This verse is made using an approach called Black out poetry. It is something I was introduced to a few months ago by @japhofin8or
I actually did this a couple of days ago.
I just noticed he recently did another one himself. So I thought I'd share mine too.
Check out the post linked above.
In it he describes the process and encourages everyone to give it a try.
I will drop this attempt in the comments in his post. It would be cool to read some others too. I have a humble uppity vote, but to anyone who has a try and links it in @japhofin8or's original post I will give 100% vote and resteem.
Thanks japh-man, love your work
He is a colourful character.
He and his 2d steemit pal are staring in @papa-peppers wild n strange art round this week. Definitely worth checking out too!
He also brightened my tired old black and white gb4m drawing below, which was pretty cool of him. Don't you think?
I love it! Your poem is mysterious. It's really good. I would like to see more people doing this derivative style of poetry. I'm thinking about a challenge but I'm not quite sure how to make the rules. I'm sure I'll figure something out. Thanks for tagging me in he post. I hope to see more from you!
@japhofin8or,
@girlbeforemirror credits this idea to you. Did you come up with it? If so, very creative. How come I didn't think of that? Within 10 seconds of reading it, the wheels started turning. Since you had one good idea, you might have others. That's the kind of people I'm interested in following. Hence, you've got a new Follower.
Two of my fave poetry mentors. Japh taught me to write odes to The last slices of pizza, broken chairs, and old T-shirts. Quill, Coca-Cola jingle Ballard challenges about roof racks and bum cracks.
Japh, I will contribute 10sbd towards your black out contest prize pool when you decide to run with it.
Or restart the ode challenge?? I miss that challenge, or any contest you are perhaps considering.
I am the least predictable contest participant, and even worse contest host. I was always well intended and always very engaged at the preoccupied, precontemplation, rumination stage.
Much like where I am with the poetry task that quil has set me. Ideas rolling, nothing solid just yet.
@girlbeforemirror,
It takes time.
This may sound silly, but poetry is a "way of thinking." When you write a lot of poetry, it changes the way you organize information by changing it into "story form." It subtly changes the way you view the world ... a search for the metaphor and meaning in the otherwise mundane. (You also end up peppering you prose with a lot more alliteration.) Great poetry requires identifying the essence of a thing and then hyperbolizing it. This is not generally a requirement of normal day living.
I have often recommended that new poets only write in verse ... structured meter, rhythm and rhyme. (Incidentally, no one listens.)
This is for two reasons: The discipline required to write in verse forces you to distill the essence. When you haven't, it's obvious that you're writing doggerel. Your baloney becomes obvious for all to see. In free verse, there's no way to get it wrong. That way you always get to claim that you got it right. Convenient. Your baloney, therefore, gets to pretend to be a T-Bone steak. And hence, the postmodern ideological claim that "everything is equally beautiful" ... an assertion that defies the evidence of our eyes and ears.
Second, it forces you to master the subtleties of language: For example, the manipulation of pause by punctuation. I have an expression: "The power of prosody is in the pause."
I started writing last night (it's currently 6in the morning Sunday mothers day ).
I think I have taken the poem in a very different direction. Towards a commentary on humans, in a fairly judgemental way. It will be interesting to see how different. Sunday is not likely to be a productive writing day (family), I will have a look a little later though. I was cooking and scribbling ideas last night. Sometimes ideas and lines come to me when I am not trying.
I started by putting down ideas for each stanza, regardless of word selection or meter rhyme etc. Just to think about where I was going with the flow of a story line, before I started getting stuck on being more selective. I don't think I've done that much before. Even when given a theme prompt I usually just let it roll along as a go.
@girlbeforemirror,
Happy Mother's Day (almost).
I have to admit, I'm a bit giddy with anticipation to see what you come up with. The poem is like a Venn Diagram. No matter what, it's going to have both my DNA, and your DNA, in it. Two different people creating common ground (not finding it) in the middle. The overlap.
You're in a tricky place ... you can only stray so far from my stanzas because your stanzas have an obligatory starting point and an obligatory end point (my stanzas). You are FORCED to consider my perspective.
You know, in this day and age of insane political discourse, this might be an interesting social experiment. Get two ideologically opposed people to write two poems, blank out every second stanza like we did, and then, tell both to write the missing stanzas.
I think @d-pend ought to be fascinated to try this for his Contest. Would you have any objection if I DM'd him and told him what we were up to?
I had better deliver then. I have tried to stay on topic, but I have strayed a little.
Yeah, contact Daniel, he is a lovely man. I better get it together and write something soon then.
Hi
I haven't forgotten about my assignment. I'm in a tricky spot at the moment and can't get comfortable with challenging tasks. It is still circling the back of my mind and coming out in unrelated ballad posts.
I have a few things going on, on the side.
I will contact you via email x
Fantastic I've never seen this type of poetry, and it's been a while, I hope you've been managing?
I'm doing OK. Nice to hear from you. I haven't been too active on steemit lately, it's great to see you have kept rolling with the poetry challenge.
I'd love to see what you may find in a black out poem. Please link it if you do one.
Yeah I saw the blackout poem style from you and I'm wondering how well I will do it I'm still exploring and looking for how well to do it,
Please do keep up with your recovery my friend, you're in my prayers
Oh ... I love this idea. Did you use your own prose or another writers?
Use anything. A page of a book which is what I did (I enjoy destroying books😈), or a news paper article.
Because I'm a beginner I find a passage from a novel easier, because they are more descriptive and colourful in words. Transforming a boring newspaper to a piece of art would be cool.
https://steemit.com/poetry/@japhofin8or/three-dream-for-the-sea
I may do just that for tomorrow's poem:)
This post has been selected for curation by @msp-curation by @sunravelme. It has been upvoted and will be featured in this week's Working Title post. It will also be considered for the official @minnowsupport curation post and if selected will be resteemed from the main account. Feel free to join us on Discord!
@girlbeforemirror,
This just gave me an idea. Mulling. Thank you.
This has to be my favorite blackout I've read yet. Delightfully dark and easily relate-able.
Now that costume, the stranger, the figure. Gaunt, shrouded in costumes grave. Mask concealed corpse.
-The line that brought me here from sunravelme's curation, and the line that remains my favorite. Beautifully done.
Thanks man!
I did choose a passage with some descriptive words. I think the real art is transforming a mundane news paper article into something completely different.
I also want to encourage everyone across to @japhofin8or's poem, it is lovely. He has been quite the poetry mentor to me. He hosted the alternate haiku contest recently. Though I think his ode Challenge is still my favourite steemit poetry contest of all time. I wish it took off, steemit can be a tough place to gain traction on a good idea sometimes. He had a weekly theme to write an ode to. Last pizza slice, fave T-shirt, broken lawn chair... He introduced me to ode writing and black out. I'd love to see him get some credit. This piece is beautiful.
https://steemit.com/poetry/@japhofin8or/three-dream-for-the-sea
I hope he goes ahead with the black out contest.
@japhofin8or, I will sponsor the sbd prize for the first round when you launch it.😊
I would definitely join if he hosts a blackout contest!
I shall mosey on over and have a looksie at his stuff.