The folks at Duarte Design try out some blackout poetry

During a lunch break dedicated to enjoying “Analog Time” we gathered newspapers, magazines, photo copies of novels, lots of Sharpies, and started creating by subtracting. By the end of the hour, we had some incredible poems, and a solid buzz from the Sharpie fumes. Each of the poems was wildly different, even when they were created from the same passage of text. Some were hilarious, some were heartwarming, and at least one was pretty racy.

Poring over which words to omit, I realized that creating blackout poetry is similar to creating a great presentation. You start with a lot of stuff, you study it all and make decisions on what to eliminate and what to highlight, and at the end you are left with the few essential elements that work together to tell a story.