black-out poetry

“MGR is dead?”

“MGR is dead?”

That’s the joke in the house when I tell folks I learnt of something. The joke is on them of course. Because MGR is dead. But the cultural reference is to a Tamil movie in which a comedian says, “What?! MGR is dead?!” years after he died. In fairness, I am unusually dense when it comes to cultural trends, and so many times entire songs or references that rocked the younger generation just pass me by. Usually, some kind child enlightens me and by then of course the joke is gone. Very tiring – especially now in the age of social media. Remember when 6-7 was a thing? Now it is not a thing, it is a cringe. Things 15 year olds get called ‘gramps’ by 10 year olds for. Sigh.

So expecting some similar response, I told folks about this latest thing we learnt called Black-out Poetry. As expected, the children had heard of it, the husband thought it was cool. Poets have been running channels and videos posting how it is done for over a decade. So, all is well. MGR is dead.

What is Black-out Poetry?

As it turns out, this is an amazing thing to do while riffling through old magazines or you just want to do something creative in a short span. Pick out random words or phrases across the page, and try to frame a poem from it.

I tried it, and even for an amateur, I loved it. The process, the words, the picture it conjured in my mind. It was all beautiful.

I chose an article in the magazine, The Outlook Traveller, which was an absolute delight to fish for words and phrases in.

The finished piece is here: