6/8/2026
This is a technique I learned from the instructor at the Cancer Community Outreach Center at Northside Hospital here in Atlanta. It’s called “blackout poetry”. This method involves isolating words or phrases from text, such as a paperback book, and then obscuring the remaining words to reveal a new poetic message. The book I used for this is The Great Gatsby.
For further instructions, please read “What is Blackout Poetry? As you will see, the traditional process involves blacking out all the words not in the poem. I was taught and prefer to add artwork to the page.
The resulting poem is:
There was music through the summer nights, among the whisperings.
At high tide, I watched cataracts of foam,
In the morning and long past midnight.
I stenciled and drew blue “waves” and then wrote music quotes at the top of the page. These are not my quotes:
“Where words fail, music speaks.”
“Music is the literature of the heart. It commences where speech ends.”
“Music is Life Itself.”
“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.”
“I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things.”
“Music is uplifting; it’s encouraging; it’s strengthening.”
i am really pleased with how this turned out. It uplifted me as creating artwork always does. What do you like to do as a release? Angie