Before I lost my mind and decided to write poems for The 100 Day Project, I thought I might do 100 days of blackout poetry.  Blackout poetry, or erasure poetry, “is a form of found poetry wherein a poet takes an existing text and erases, blacks out, or otherwise obscures a large portion of the text, creating a wholly new work from what remains.”  I find it to be a fascinating process.  I think I’m glad that I made the last-minute decision to attempt to write various types of poetry, but I suspect that this will not be the last piece of blackout poetry included in these 100 days.

This particular piece came from two paragraphs in the Opinion section of the Dallas Morning News.  I opted to retype it, trying to remain true to the placement of the words as they appeared in the original article, because it was difficult to photograph.  I used a black Sharpie for the blackout sections and it was reflecting light strangely.

Enjoy Average Person.

There may be something a little ironic about this poem being created by “erasure.”