No one writer or artistic movement can lay claim to having invented blackout poetry. However, examples of this poetic style can be traced back to the Dada artistic movement which emerged during World War I, and the American Beat Poet movement of the 1950s and 60s.

Dada artists worked primarily between World War I and II. They created visual, written, sound, and performance art in response to the chaos, violence and destruction caused by World War I. Feeling generally dismayed and enraged by the havoc of the War, they ended up creating work that was subversive and chaotic, clashing with the traditions of art at the time. Their emotional responses to the upheaval that war caused became present and central in their artwork. Their main goal was to tear away the traditions of art history and replace it with artistic responses to the world around them. For example, the Dada artist Tristan Zara was known for cutting words from many different sources, then re-arranging them randomly on a page. The results of this exercise are text-based works that embody the ideas of the Dadaist style: nonsense, chance, and chaos.

Like the Dadaists, the Beat movement of the 1950's and 60's created a body of work that responded and refuted the materialistic, capitalist society of America that began to develop after World War 2. The Beats looked to the emergence of sexual liberation, psychedelic drugs, jazz music, and Eastern religions such as Buddhism as major sources of inspiration.

The Beat movement viewed American society as “square" - or old-fashioned and boring - and sought to dress, behave, live, and create differently than most Americans. As such "beatnik" poets and writers William Burroughs, and Brion Gysin began to make writing and visual art that spoke to these sensibilities.

In making a mixed media painting, Gysin mistakenly cut through several layers of newspapers. This chance discovery of a three-dimensional effect inspired Gysin to create a new kind of text-based painting.

This process was witnessed by fellow beatnik William Burroughs. Burroughs was a prolific writer and visual artist who became widely known for his novel about drug addiction, Naked Lunch, which contained chapters that could be read in any order. Similarly to Gysin and Tristan Zara, Burroughs would cut up a piece of writing and put it back together to create a new work. Blackout poetry steals from all of these artworks, artists methods and ideas.

To make a blackout poem, the author crosses out (using marker or pen) the words that they do not want, saving the words that become a new poem, statement, or short story. What makes the contemporary form of blackout poetry different from other forms is that the poet must keep the saved words in the order they appear on the page. The poet must not change them, or add or pluralize the saved words.

Gather old newspapers, magazines, books and other pieces of writing that are allowed to be ripped, cut, marked on and used as art materials. Read through several pages from each text to find individual words or small parts of sentences that interest you. When reading, think about the themes in each piece of writing. Would they be interesting to include in your poem? Do they generally contribute to a subject or idea that engages you?

Separate the interesting passages of writing from the uninteresting ones by cutting them out to be used as material for your blackout poem. Set the other pieces of text aside.

(Optional step: once you have selected pieces of writing to create blackout poetry with, use your camera or cell phone to photograph a few pages. Send them to a relative or friend and get them to follow along with the project using the same texts you’re using. The results you create and the results others create from the same text will be surprisingly different - no two blackout poems are the same!)

Select a piece of writing from your pile and, using a pencil, lightly circle the individual words, parts of words, or parts of sentences that you found interesting. The words should feel like they go together in some way: they don't need to rhyme, or even connect grammatically, but they should all contribute to the overall tone or message of the piece you're creating.

On a separate piece of paper, list all of the circled words in the order that they appear in the original text from top to bottom, left to right. Remember not to pluralize words.

Read through your list of handwritten words. Does the list sound poetic? Does it make sense as a poem or story to you?

If need be, edit this list: Cross out words which do not need to be included, or go back to the original text to find words which you have overlooked. This list now contains all the words for your blackout poem, in the correct order. Remember: If you add new words to your list, you must lightly circle them on the original text. If you removed words from your list, erase the circle from that word on the original text.

Place your hand-written list beside the original text. Begin blacking out a small amount of space around each word you have circled. If you have circled part of words, black out anything that is not circled (i.e., the word unlikely can be partially blacked out to read as unlikely).

Once each circled word has some black around it, think about the dark spaces that will be created once you’ve completed your blackout poem. Consider leaving some of those spaces only partially blacked out, so you can create interesting shapes with negative space. Alternatively, you can black out all the words you didn’t circle for a dark and impactful final effect. (See the image carousel for examples of both options).

Using a dark marker, a dark pencil crayon or pen, blackout the rest of the words on the original text that you do not want in your poem. Embellish any blank negative spaces with pencil crayons or marker.

You’re all finished! Try it again with another piece of text from your pile. Enjoy the process!

Post your blackout poem creations on Twitter, hashtag them with #MacLarenWedge and mention us @MacLarenArt so we can retweet all your creative work! Search for blackout poems that other W-Edge participants have made and look for your creations on our Twitter feed on this page.