Blackout Poetry
Blackout poetry is derived from other published works (eg. a passage from a classic novel, but it could be an online news article, recipe, etc). You cherry-pick words from the passage and use them, in order, to form a poem. The poem can have a similar or completely different message from the source passage.
Free-use copies of classic novels can be found at Gutenberg.org
**Assignment**
1. Choose a source passage. Include it in your entry, with the chosen words highlighted.
2. Choose words from this passage to create a poem based on the theme MOOD. You must use them in the order they were originally written.
3. Poem can be any style, any length, rhyme or not, but must convey a strong sense of some mood.
Example: quickly assembled, don't judge. :-)
Dull, dark autumn clouds
A dreary evening gloom
Unrelieved images looked
Upon the decayed soul
From The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allen Poe:
DURING the whole of a *dull, dark*, and soundless day in the *autumn* of the year, when the *clouds* hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through *a* singularly *dreary* tract of country, and at length found myself, as the shades of the *evening* drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was...but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable *gloom* pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I *looked* upon the scene before me...upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain...*upon the* bleak walls...upon the vacant eye-like windows ...upon a few rank sedges...and upon a few white trunks of *decayed* trees...with an utter depression of *soul*.
The contest winner will win half of the prize pool which is based on the number of entries. The second and third place winners will each share the remaining prize pool. The prize pool is currently 25.00 member dollars. There are 13 spots still open. If all open spots are used the prize pool will be 90.00 member dollars. In this contest at least 2 submissions must be made for the vote to begin.
Deadline: Contest is closed. Deadline was Sunday, August 4, 2024.
Full Contest Listing
Free-use copies of classic novels can be found at Gutenberg.org
**Assignment**
1. Choose a source passage. Include it in your entry, with the chosen words highlighted.
2. Choose words from this passage to create a poem based on the theme MOOD. You must use them in the order they were originally written.
3. Poem can be any style, any length, rhyme or not, but must convey a strong sense of some mood.
Example: quickly assembled, don't judge. :-)
Dull, dark autumn clouds
A dreary evening gloom
Unrelieved images looked
Upon the decayed soul
From The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allen Poe:
DURING the whole of a *dull, dark*, and soundless day in the *autumn* of the year, when the *clouds* hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through *a* singularly *dreary* tract of country, and at length found myself, as the shades of the *evening* drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was...but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable *gloom* pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I *looked* upon the scene before me...upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain...*upon the* bleak walls...upon the vacant eye-like windows ...upon a few rank sedges...and upon a few white trunks of *decayed* trees...with an utter depression of *soul*.
The contest winner will win half of the prize pool which is based on the number of entries. The second and third place winners will each share the remaining prize pool. The prize pool is currently 25.00 member dollars. There are 13 spots still open. If all open spots are used the prize pool will be 90.00 member dollars. In this contest at least 2 submissions must be made for the vote to begin.
Deadline: Contest is closed. Deadline was Sunday, August 4, 2024.
