Kyle MacDonald, the writer who bartered a red paperclip for a house through a series of trades, has a new project: A “dewritten” book.
Inspired by the blackout poetry of Austin Kleon, MacDonald took a book and, using “5 black felt pens and 100 hours,” transformed it into a new work that’s comprised of “more than 352 unique drawings with poems and phrases created using only pre-existing words in the book.”
The book he used was Be Excellent at Anything: The Four Keys To Transforming the Way We Work and Live by Tony Schwartz, Jean Gomes & Catherine McCarthy. The new work is entitled Be Anything. He’s selling it for $345.67 on Etsy.
“Blackout poems from bad books, part 1” by salix lucida
There are only so many topics one can eke out of Atlas Shrugged no matter how much context one blacks out. Somewhat surprisingly to me, one of them is stars.
(Blackout poems being a clever little exercise of Austin Kleon’s, and something I’ve wanted to try with insufferably bad books for a while)
“Blackout poems from bad books, the inspiration” by salix lucida
I’ve wanted to do blackout poems a la Austin Kleon using insufferably bad books, ever since I wound up with a damaged copy of Atlas Shrugged. It was only when I found this paragraph spoken by an antagonist that I realised how perfectly it could work.
For his next book, “Tree of Codes,” [Foer] excised sections of a book by Bruno Schulz—literally cutting words from the pages—to let his own story emerge. “I would encourage everyone to do this,” Safran Foer said
UPDATE: Yes, folks, I’m familiar with Tom Phillips’ A Humument. I write about it and other books of these kind of literary experiments in Newspaper Blackout
Newspaper + marker = blackout poetry.
This site is a companion to the book Newspaper Blackout by Austin Kleon. It's a place where anyone can share their attempts at blackout poetry.
Grab a marker and a newspaper, redact the words you don't need, and share your poem.
![Tree of Codes, by Jonathan Safran Foer
austinkleon:
New Yorker:
For his next book, “Tree of Codes,” [Foer] excised sections of a book by Bruno Schulz—literally cutting words from the pages—to let his own story emerge. “I would encourage everyone to do this,” Safran Foer said
Read more about the book
Also: Jonathan Safran Foer’s New Book Will Have A Few Words And A Plot
UPDATE: Yes, folks, I’m familiar with Tom Phillips’ A Humument. I write about it and other books of these kind of literary experiments in Newspaper Blackout](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_la6vkqPI4R1qz6f4bo1_500.jpg)
