When I make blackout poems, I usually try not to read the page I’m working from, at least not until I’m done making a poem, because I don’t want to be influenced by the actual meaning of the writing in making what I hope will be something new. That did not go so well with Seneca’s Dialogues and Essays— the writing was too compelling for me not to read each page I turned to, so I’m afraid that my poems below might just be summaries of what I read. Alas, I’m posting them here anyway…
How has been two and a half years since I last posted some blackout poetry?! Now that I’m back at the blogging game, I thought I would inaugurate it with some blackout poems, this batch coming from Carl Jung’s Memories, Dreams, Reflections. Because this was his autobiography, it is full of dreams and psychoanalysis (as the title suggests) as he plumbed the depths of his own subconscious self. These poems are probably a bit heavy as a result, but I have a feeling that a lot of my poems are heavy. So what’s new, really?
You will never fully
get the sand out of your hair
when you live in the desert.
You will never have enough water.
You will smell, because
you will be dirty.
But you won’t leave.
You are looking for something;
you are waiting.
This is all you get;
this is your inheritance:
dust and illusions.
You came for something more?
Ah, but that is not
for you to find.
Not unless you let go
of any you that wants,
of the you you are.
You, with the sunburnt face
and empty hands,
what are you seeking?
When will you give up?
You will never find it
with the eyes you’re looking through.
You will not be able
to explain it when you do.
See, the desert is not
where the lost are found
but where the lost lose
everything they have
and are transformed.
Silence is not the same as absence.
I thought truth could be spoken,
but it turns out it can’t.
It hides in words,
can only be approached by
metaphor, paradox,
what can’t be explained.
‘What is truth?’ Pilate asked Jesus,
but Jesus said nothing.
Even Pilate was surprised.
Back at it with Swann’s Way by Proust, I made some more poems from the tome. (The first series of Swann’s Way blackout poems are posted here— it will be quite a while before I run out of material to use from this book.) Still at a loss for anything to write about in prose form, I am sticking with poetry at the moment. (And what a weird moment it is. Who can make sense of what is going on in the world and our lives?) Literature is the best refuge, in my opinion.
[The first line is from the poem “Love Poem: Centaur” by Donika Kelly.]
What I make, stands undone.
Seams unfinished, paint dripping
off the canvas, a poem always
erasing itself. My completion
rebukes me, tells me it’s not
enough, I must start again.
This boulder I roll up a hill
each day threatens to remain
at the top, but I call its bluff.
We both know we must go
back to where we started.
My summer was spent welcoming my first niece into the world, moving apartments, and adjusting to all the change, so any processing through writing I’ve done has not made it into the public. This post hardly makes up for the months I’ve been MIA, but it’s something. So here are some poems I made from Ovid’s Metamorphoses (which are admittedly already poems and not in any way enhanced by my edits).
I dug into Seneca’s Dialogues and Essays to make some blackout poems, and these are what I came out with. They tend to follow the Stoic philosophy (surprise), but I tried to break out of that in a couple of these for a fresh take on the words on the pages.
I’ve made some more of my favorite things: here are some blackout poems made from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (which just so happened to be one of my favorite books back in high school).
words not made with lungs 