what i fall around

under small world /  more lost /  as bees /  among dogwood /  stirring /  stillness… /  my hardest, pretty /  mystery, just yesterday /  looked /  in to /  body, muscularity odd /  fragile /  loneliness swimming

black out 10/8/15

Vladamir Nabokov wrote, “The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible.”

I ask: Is there such a thing as a blank page? Are we ever really starting from nothing? Pages come from trees, which come from earth, so even in the emptiness, there is a history of something that once was.

Blackout poetry is a form that celebrates this. Finding words from within other words. Creating something new from what already exists. One can take any text and blackout as many words as one desires. Leaving several words, strung together or all apart of just leaving one. But what is left is what becomes newly birthed. Because the meaning changes. And it becomes yours.

Here is a recent blackout poem I created:
into your intestinal/ your weird evolution/ of neurons/ of trouble/ of bacteria/ (yes,)/ and pretty/ of timid/ called “gut”/ also Who knows?/ with yogurt/ Okay, what if/ to stop/ at our stomachs/ go poking/ write, the human/ the privilege/ the self.