Grow Your Mind

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 my rescued book is titled Grow Your Mind.

 About the Black Out Poem and Grow Your Mind

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.

Grow Your Mind

When things go right
Let’s look at the process
Of the successful female
The best woman
Elite
What’s their secret?
Some years ago
You wouldn’t expect
It was inconceivable
Take steps
Develop their minds
Grow your mind

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!

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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.

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