Poetry Evening: Kick Off for National Poetry Month

** NO REGISTRATION NEEDED TO CREATE POETRY AND LISTEN, JUST SHOW UP! **
If you're a local poet who would like to read, please email us at the store to get on the evening's line up.

A two-in-one event: an opportunity to create your own erasure/redacted poetry at your leisure starting at 5:00. Listen to local poets share their work starting at 6:00, with chances to read your own newly-created redacted poetry. Conversation, reading, poetry writing & book signing.

WHAT IS BLACKOUT POETRY?

Blackout poetry, also known as erasure or redacted poetry, are all types of found poetry. Specifically, found poetry has a goal of using pre-existing or "found" text to create something new. Portions of the original text are kept, while other parts are drawn over or crossed out. Well-crafted blackout poetry can give new meanings to old texts. In addition to the words themselves, often times the artwork created by blacking out words can also contribute to the poem's meaning.

Some examples of found sources include: newspapers, magazines, books, and journals. Poems in this style can be short or long, abstract or concrete, carefree or tragic. All you need to do is: 

1. Identify the text you want to use.
2. Make note of meaningful words, phrases, or ideas.
3. Mark out the text you wish to exclude from your poem. You can blackout text with lines or even drawings. 

LOCAL(ish) POETS COME AND READ!

We are excited to be presenting some readings from The Guilford Poets Guild and other local poets. More details to come! In the meantime, check out some of the amazing poetry offerings available on our shelves right now! (Local author's works are available in the the store, but often do not show up in our online sales database because they are not available from our distributor, Ingram. We can't seem to change that without a lot of effort, so please come browse the shelves for our local authors!)