This Journey
So much pain and trauma
Heartache and heartbreak
yet, you hold on
keep your collective chins up
hoping for change
How beautiful you are.
No matter how it might look
You are shifting
We are all shifting.
In all dimensions
all galaxies
No matter how it might look on planet Earth,
You are spiraling up
making your way
to the promised land
Comment: This is a version of a redacted poem, or black out poem or erasure poem — where you take a page of text and black out most of the words in order to find a poem — somewhat like how Michelangelo was said to use a chisel to remove from the marble everything that wasn’t the sculpture.
However, I have adapted this a bit. On a xeroxed page, you can’t change the placement of the words or their order. I have done both. I don’t think it’s a great poem but it’s a great exercise in distilling something down to it’s essence.
It’s worth trying it too, on a piece of writing, just to see how few words you actually need to communicate the essence of an idea.
Poetry Prompt: Do a black out or redacted poem: Xerox a page from any book, or take a page from your own writing. With a marker, black out all the unnecessary words.
Do you end up with a distilled idea? Or perhaps another idea that you couldn’t see before?
Some people are strict in not keeping the form of the words found on the page. Others, as I did, take the bits and tweak them a bit. The lovely thing about poetry in my opinion, is that you get to make up the rules that best serve your poem.
PS. For more about black out poetry and some examples:
