Subtract Your Way To A New Poem
by Joshua Wait
A blank page can feel intimidating. At times, I don’t know what to say, and the words escape me. Prompts offer me ideas, but they still require me to start with a blank page and add material to it.
Blackout poetry is different. I start with a passage from a book like The Call of the Wild by Jack London, then black out the words I don’t want with a marker or, if it’s digital, with software. I sculpt the poem into existence by chipping away the unwanted words. I subtract words instead of adding them.
Subtracting words reverses my normal practice. Instead of thinking up new material, I erase what’s already there. If I write a poem from scratch, I draw upon memories, images, and familiar ideas to put words on the page. If I evaluate existing words to create a new poem, I see patterns, observe possibilities, and remove stuff that doesn’t work.
The subtraction method can feel counterintuitive. People tend to solve problems by adding something rather than subtracting. In their article “People Systematically Overlook Subtractive Changes,” the authors demonstrate a natural bias toward adding rather than subtracting. Don’t let that natural resistance stop you. People have been creating blackout poetry for decades.
Blackout poetry got started in the mid-1960s when Doris Cross and others began to experiement with it. Cross used ink, paint, and other materials to obscure words and find new meaning. Today, we can use software to black out words instead of markers or paint.
It’s important to note that software can make the process too easy. Some developers create a frictionless environment so that the user doesn’t have to work at finding a poem. The user clicks a few words, then watches the software do the work.
While a frictionless environment may produce more poems in a shorter period of time, it can result in less original work. The automation causes the poet to spend less time working with the words, which means less time making meaningful choices and discovering new possibilities.
If the creative process becomes a zero-gravity environment, we run the risk of losing our creative muscles. Our minds need a certain amount of resistance to develop the skills that lead to better work.
The blackout poetry app at Blue Rivers relies on an idea central to the traditional technique. The app requires the author to make marks that cover the words. It’s inefficient and a little messy, but making the marks by hand can increase focus and enrich the experience. It feels like making a piece of art and writing a poem at the same time.
Often, I would prefer to use traditional materials. There’s something I love about the squeak of a marker on a piece of paper. However, the blackout poetry app at Blue Rivers is available on my phone whenever I feel the impulse to create. I can choose different passages, select from a variety of colors, and erase my mistakes. And if I want, I can use white to hide words so that the poem feels like a printed page rather than a redaction.
Sometimes a blank page feels like an obstacle rather than an opportunity. If I start with a passage of text that contains more words than I need, I can shift focus from inventing to discovering. I don’t have to come up with a bunch of new words. I can select them from the page. And I can see what belongs and what doesn’t.
Joshua Wait is a writer and an artist. He founded Blue Rivers to provide a space for poetry, art, and photography.
