Customer Reviews

Newspaper Blackout

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This is more than a book of poetry. Austin gives some of the history behind this style of "found art" and shares what he's learned since he started. He doesn't present himself as a master of the art and a hugely profound philosopher/poet. In fact, he gives a "How-to" and encourages the reader to pick up a newspaper and marker and explore it for him/herself, and at the end he shares a few Blackout Poems from other people.

Some of the poems are funny, some are profound, but they all will make you look at any block of text in a different way.

It sounds easy enough. Take a newspaper article and block off a section two columns wide by 5 or 6 inches long. Look for words or phrases that speak to you and draw a box around them. Flesh out your poem using other words from the article and then "blackout" the remainder. Austin Kleon did not invent this method but he did take it and run with it. At first read the poems seem simple. But after you get out your own marker and try your hand at it, you realize how talented this guy really is. Some are funny, some are sentimental, all are thought provoking. Buy the book. Also buy a newspaper and a sharpie. Go ahead, blackout a poem. You know you want to.

I got the chance to meet Austin Kleon while in Austin, TX for SXSW 2010. He's a really down to earth guy and incredibly talented. I actually was able to purchase the book in advance there as well. I've enjoyed just thumbing through the book and reading different poems at random. Some are very linear and easy to read, and some you almost have to guess where the next line leads. But I think that's part of the fun and creativity about it. I recommend this book to anyone interested in not only poetry, but art as well.

Some inspirational, some motivational, some uppers, some downers and some out-right hilarious - Kleon's Newspaper Blackout poems runs the gamut of human emotion in an aesthetically pleasing, softcover compilation of page-turning, proverb-like poems. A must buy for anyone who can read the English language! NOTE: Make sure to purchase a few because you will be giving and gifting them away to friends, enemies and stragners alike.

As you can see in the photos, each page of this paperback book contains a poem, usually a sentence or two each. This makes it incredibly easy to pick any random page of the book and begin reading - great for the train, or the bathroom, or waiting in line somewhere. Each page is entirely different in content, based on the newspaper page that it was blacked out from, making each poem a surprise.

This book stretches your conceptions of poetry, authorship, and art. It certainly gives a new life to newspapers and a new bent to poetry. I'd certainly recommend it to any visual artists, writers or teachers who are looking for something a little out of the ordinary.

This is poetry, yes, and some of it quite personal and interesting like the best of the genre. The blackout style makes for terse expression but, in spite of that, Austin comes across as voluble and enthusiastic. He responded to being told that his art was reductive by providing an interesting history of influences which didn't actually actively influence him. He responded to the temptation of others to take Sharpies to a page of text by encouraging others to try, printing some of the results and a guide for readers. The result is a set of nice poems, a celebration of all the words around us and an invitation to make art yourself.

I enjoyed Newspaper Blackout for a few simple reasons. At first, I thought, there is no way this man is a poet. However, once I delved into his work, I realized that Kleon dipped into his creative genius by reinventing someone else's words and making them his own. Secondly, the images Kleon creates with words are simple, deep, and profound. Less is more, as "they" say. And finally, I am a Texas girl...and loved the pieces about my home state.

Just when you thought poetry was dead, kaput, Austin Kleon comes along and breathes new life into the moribund form with the help of newsprint, a Sharpie, and a "Beautiful Mind"-esque eye for word patterns. Though his newspaper of choice is the New York Times, and a number of the poems here concern Texas, Kleon himself is from Ohio, which isn't really a surprise when you consider how many of America's preeminent artistic figures come from the midwest: Orson Welles was from Wisconsin, Marlon Brando was from Nebraska, Bob Dylan is from Minnesota, Hemingway from Illinois, etc. Kleon isn't in their league yet, but a glimmer of that young, erstwhile midwesterner, genius vibe is there, and it's thrilling.

I recall deciding I hated poetry somewhere around freshman year of high school and have only very reluctantly ever read a poem all the way through since, until I found Newspaper Blackout. Someone sent me one of Kleon's blog posts, and I decided that anyone who understood creativity as well as he did was worth the cost of the book. So now, I've read about half of the book, and would have finished except I appear to have hidden it from myself. It's here somewhere. It will appear when I need it. That's 20 poems more than I've read since 1974.

Even more, I'm talking about Newspaper Blackout, which is a sign that a book matters. I read enough--150+ books a year?--that most of them slip right on through, in one eye and back to the library, and only rarely mentioned in passing to someone with similar interests. However, I'm mentioning Newspaper Blackout, and may try setting it up as a party game later in the summer, with a pile of newspapers, some examples, the books, and a can of black markers. Think it might be interesting... My partner is skeptical, but he hasn't seen the book itself yet.