Blackout Poetry - Unsung Songs

Inspired by a swap at swap-bot.com, I decided to try blackout poetry for the first time. In this type of poetry, you black out words in a newspaper article (or more than one article on a page) or on the page of a book (best to photocopy the page so the book doesn't get ruined), leaving behind only the words you chose to form a poem. I selected the book Memnoch the Devil by Anne Rice (the fifth novel in her Vampire Chronicles series) for my first blackout poem. I opened the book to page 250, scanned it into my computer, and began my journey into a new realm of poetry (at least for myself).

As a quick side note before I share my poem, I found it best to black out the words on the computer using an image editor (since it scanned as a jpeg) rather than print the page out and black out words with a permanent marker or pen. My headache can attest to the mistake of using marker.

Unsung Songs

By Candace Shultz

When I am angry, I will say nothing.

They do not ask my point of view.

These men are not so clever.

I see much.

I understand.

But they rise continuously.

My songs fall silent

For my kind are dead.