High Flyers

I have a confession to make. The Black Out Poem has captured my imagination. I find it interesting to take a page filled with writing and turn it into something often contrary to the original meaning. It’s like playing with someone else’s words and making them become my own. Free verse is the best way to write this form of poetry. I ran out of pages in Rebecca Hunt’s Mr. Chartwell. I decided to step things up in my adventure with black-out poetry.

Before I retired, I worked in a small university police office. Part of my duties centered around processing the lost and found. At the end of each semester, students often left books on table tops they couldn’t sell back to the bookstore. We kept them for a long time before placing them in the trash. I brought Carol S. Dweck’s Mindset home because it caught my attention. The poem I created from the book I rescued is titled High Flyers.

 About the Black Out Poem and High Flyers

Poet takes a black marker and redacts words until a poem is formed. It is important to note the text and redacted words form a visual poem.

Method to use

1. Identify source text. The source can be a newspaper, a book page, or written text.

2. Draw a box around keywords or phrases.

3. Make Connections between boxes. (This is optional.)

4. Color the rest in with a marker. You can use any color. The most common color used is black.

I found this style of creating a poem unique from anything I’ve ever tried before. The words are already provided, and the challenge is to make something poetic out of the text. I’m excited to see how the different textbook writing style found in Carol S. Dweck’s Mindset translates into poetic form.

High Flyers

His legacy
Evil 
Critical decision
Make them feel good
Blame
Cover mistakes
Crush rivals
Screw the little guy
What is fascinating
Felt invulnerable and invincible
Onslaughts
Fierce rivals
World of
Greatness and
Sense of entitlement
The company elite
They had a right
To anything
Flatters who extolled
Virtues
They felt invincible
A magic realm
Completely fulfilled
Uglier reality of warts and failure
High Flyers
Use their strength
Get criticism
There is tremendous risk

Who is Molly Shea?

Molly Shea is an accomplished fictional short story writer from Indiana who writes short stories and novels about a fictional town called Tecumseh.  To read more of her short stories and adventures, click here.

Be sure to follow Molly on Twitter!

Entry 345: Sticker Shock at the Grocery Store
Keeping a journal has never been one of my strongest pursuits. I …
What I Learned from Participating in NaNoWriMo #9
I started participating in NaNoWriMo in 2014 because of a dare. Someone …
Before the Storm
In high school, I had a young teacher straight out of college. …
Entry 344: Trying to Find Time
Keeping a journal has never been one of my strongest pursuits. I …

Published by henhouselady

I am the author of Saving the Hen House. I didn't know when I started it would turn into a series. I love to ride motorcycles, the blues, my family, and going on adventures. This old hen rocks.

2 thoughts on “High Flyers

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

%d