What is poetry? Google says it is an expression of feelings characterized by a particular style and rhythm. I asked a friend and she said it was something people with too much time on their hands read and did. According to another friend, poetry is your heart’s song which it sings to itself. Somewhere online someone described poetry as the words inside your head which burst out as a song. To define poetry in any one single definition would be a great injustice to this extraordinary art which is unlike anything.
I cannot even attempt to put together a phrase or an idea which would define poetry. To me, it is free of and beyond those efforts. Poetry is not something you do, I would know since I tried doing it for the longest of time eons ago. It is perhaps something, or someone, that you are. You cannot become a poet. You are a poet.
While I love reading poetry I cannot be poetic as I see so many other talented people to be. It is a wonderful gift, to be able to put your song out into the world. However, I am an avid reader of books. Which is why I was delighted when I first discovered blackout poetry or erasure. It is a type of poetry where you take an already written text and start to erase words until you come up with phrases or verses which make sense to you. This is blackout poetry and the reason behind this post.
I am going to start a new series on this blog, and being a self-proclaimed book nerd nothing makes me happier than to do so. I’ll share my renditions of poetry through erasure and see where it takes me. It doesn’t have to make sense to anyone. It just has to content the nerd on this side of the screen.
Here goes, my first, from Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, page 135.
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