Collegiate Times

Poetry via redaction is the theme that binds Austin Kleon’s first collection of poems, “Newspaper Blackout.”

This work is the polar opposite of a typical collection of contemporary poetry — instead of white pages decorated with dark lines of text, articles clipped from The New York Times are altered using permanent marker until they become short, staccato poetry. Newspaper headlines, under the duress of scribbles of black ink, become titles; blacked out sports articles transform into the simple pleasures of enjoying sunshine after a long illness.

“Literature in a hurry,” (as the Matthew Arnold quotes goes) originally pumped out by unknown Times reporters under deadline is remixed through Kleon’s inked lens into poems to be perused in a more leisurely manner.

For example, take the sparseness of “Real People,” pulled from a much denser article: “in a dive bar / real people would have / left long ago.” Or the unexpected social commentary as love poem of “The Universe Survives:” “…it’s the end of the world / and my heart is broken. / the universe survives / in a FEMA trailer.” Printed text, remixed into art!

Now, the art of remixing printed text into new mediums isn’t hard to master, and it isn’t new, either. The book’s introduction, “A Brief History of Newspaper Blackout,” lists similar text mash-up works from the likes of William S. Burroughs and Jonathan Lethem.

This leads to the charm of “Newspaper Blackout,” and indeed the reason why I am so taken to this book: The idea that poetry surrounds you in everything you consume, even in things that aren’t necessarily poetic — especially in things that aren’t necessarily poetic — and that it is up to you to extract the poetry from the text using whatever method is available. Whether that extraction takes place using a Sharpie or a pair of scissors or the copy and paste function of a software program is your choice.

As someone whose research interests include both poetry and newspapers, this book restored my faith in the future of contemporary poetry at a time when it was sorely needed. Reading “Newspaper Blackout” has made me more aware of accidental poetry moments in my own life — not that this wasn’t the case before, but my experiences surrounding this book have sharpened my eye toward such circumstances. Also, I am totally serious when I say that “Newspaper Blackout” brought me back from the brink of divorce with contemporary poetry.

Kleon’s poems — and his composition methodology — are innovative in a way I rarely see, like someone handed me a black marker and a folded newspaper of hope.

The bottom line is you might as well do something with that set of permanent black markers bought during back-to-school shopping season. Why not start creating blackout poems with this newspaper? Kleon helpfully provides a brief guide to the art of newspaper black-outing at the end of the collection.

A version of this article appeared in the Jul 22 issue of the Collegiate Times.