Ms. Widman
High School Creative Writing
This week the students at Amundsen had fun making their own blackout poems and centos. We talked about source texts and how the language of certain writings (food reviews, music reviews, reportage) lends themselves better to poetic adaptation. We looked at the work of Austin Kleon for blackout inspo. The students were then tasked with writing two poems: a blackout and a cento. They had a blast and it was amazing to see what they created. The source texts were back issues of Virginia Quarterly Review, TriQuarterly, and The Los Angeles Review. I’m delighted to publish the following poets!
After Robin Ekiss
by Alberto C.
War hidden inside
like first knowledge
of women.
My Best Friend, My Blood
by Koraima A.
Do you know that poem, Ma’am?
Mr. Rodriquez whispers while I examine a weirdo at midlife.
I live for my visits to the gynecologist.
Accompanied by my new best friend,
she’s a constant between my legs.
Her redness makes me shiver.
My reddening face
quivering in my hoodie,
cold despite my best friend’s presence.
A fake waterfall painted on the front wall.
Push the prone figure through double doors.
An ancient woman, her face pale and horrifically wrinkled.
She binds me to mount the table.
I’ve turned cold waiting for my doctor,
a dead person, which I might be soon.
A Cento (after R.T. Smith)
by Gianna O.
Our captive claimed he tried
to ease the boy over. Suffer
the little children. Everybody
gets baptized in the blood.
It’s out of my hands.
The sky is rank and smudged
with their aftermath.
Thin as crickets, mean
as hornets, but twice as busy, we
had flanked him at Dalton,
stood our ground in Kennesaw’s inferno.
Grime-faced night followed
poised like a prisoner, no matter
how addled or inept.
A Blackout
by Octavia C.
I wished
I felt
clearer.
The fact that
I haven’t been able to write at all.
I’m sorry to say I’m hardly equal
to the responsibility of appreciating such things.
I utter these words
perfectly sincere in the sentiments.
Is it something destined?
Ah, yes. I admire
almost no one.
A Blackout
by Alex F.
I
fell away
broken
no
defiance.
I wasn’t
bothered.
A Blackout (Covered in Hearts)
by Paola R.
Some way
the
future
we
asked
was near.
