Poetry Sculpture
My attempt at another way of creating poetry
I recently put out a call for people to try something new — what I call poetry sculpture.
I had done one before after trying a bit of blackout poetry and thought of using strips of repurposed books to create shapes. This then led to me cutting the strips so you can see the words that make the poetry.
The process was similar to blackout poetry except I cut out the words with a strip of the page left attached so I could curl it and stick it down.
I was uncertain the whole thing would work but thought there’s no harm in giving it a go!
The photos I took with different shadows are one unexpected interesting result. Luckily I had a sunny day here on the wintery archipelago!
My name was a woman Green, fresh, darling, I longed for her/my presence To the inner seasons of my life, Dangerous, good, Slightly weird, funny, gracious, Me.
It’s not as easy as one would think, taking other’s words to create your own poetry. I guess it very much depends on the novels you are using — in my case, a novel I was gifted in a large bag of “holiday reads” where the one I chose to repurpose was already falling apart.
It’s a crime novel in first person.
So you can imagine that it’s not so easy to find the vocabulary you might normally use as a poet.
But the result is satisfying!
Several lovely people responded to my initial story about poetry sculpture: Dennett, Trisha Traughber, Francine Fallara, Erika Burkhalter, Simran Kankas — this is how it turned out for me this time!
Sylph Hemery did some exquisite quilling in her poetry sculpture:
I would love to try that too.
Trisha Traughber suggested trying blackout poetry in my other language, Swedish, which I have started on too — but I’ll write about that another time!
~thanks for reading!~
Lisa writes poetry and other musings from her home in Finland. She also loves reading, cooking, singing with her rock band, exploring nature, getting out in her boat, and travelling. There’s no time for paid work! Keep in touch via Northern Notes and consider buying her a coffee.
