Flintridge Preparatory School Celebrates National Poetry Month with Blackout Poetry

For National Poetry Month, Flintridge Prep librarians Meryl Eldridge and Claire LaPolt are celebrating with blackout poetry—and inviting students, faculty, and staff to try their hand at the craft. Blackout poetry, also known as redacted poetry, is a form of found poetry, where the poet takes an already published work, like a newspaper, book, or magazine, and artfully redacts words so that the remaining words create an entirely new work. Blackout poets also get quite creative with the redaction, adding visual elements that result in an interplay between the written word and visual art.

Students learning from campus or at home can pick up a bag that contains pages of old books and a marker to start their composition (curbside pickup is still available from the Prep library!)

Ms. LaPolt created a few blackout poems of her own that are currently on display … if you make your own poem that you’d like to share with the community, turn it in to these Prep librarians!

Flintridge Preparatory School, 4543 Crown Ave., La Cañada Flintridge, (818) 790-1178 or visit www.flintridgeprep.org.