How to make blackout poetry
Blackout poetry begins with close reading. Keep the words that speak and let the rest fall away.
Begin with a page, not a blank
Blackout poetry—often discussed alongside erasure poetry—is made by hiding part of an existing text so that selected words remain as a new poem. The source writer supplies the landscape. You notice and choose a path through it.
Keep These offers a small shelf of verified passages from classic writing. Read one page without rushing to solve it. Notice a word, image, sound or turn of feeling that holds your attention. Keep that word, then look forward through the page for the next. Your poem always follows the source order, but it does not need to repeat the source writer’s meaning.
Let the rest fall away
Select and remove words until the language has the rhythm you want. Undo is always available. When the poem feels ready, let the unkept words fall away and choose ink or graphite for the finished page. You can download an attributed PNG or copy a stateless link. Unfinished work stays in this browser; Keep These has no accounts or poem uploads, and counts visits only in aggregate.
Save a poem for later
When a poem feels worth keeping, choose Save to my archive. It is kept in this browser on your device, never uploaded, and listed on the My poems page, from the link in the footer. You can reopen a working copy, download the text, copy a poem link, or delete it. Saved poems are only in this browser, so download anything you cannot afford to lose.
Use it offline or keep it on your device
After you have opened Keep These once, it works without a connection: choose words, undo, and download your poem as before. Your unfinished work stays in this browser either way. To keep Keep These on your device, use the Install Keep These button at the bottom of a page where your browser offers one, or your browser’s own install option. On iPhone and iPad, choose Share, then Add to Home Screen.
Stay in conversation with the source
The original work does not disappear from the encounter. Every page names its original author and links back to the source edition. The words you keep—and the poem you find—are yours, while that visible credit preserves the conversation from which they came.
Make the choices yourself
Keep These does not generate a poem or suggest which words belong together. That attention is the creative act. Start with the page that draws you, follow a finite literary path, or let chance place another passage before you.
Keep These was inspired by Andrew Lavers’ Psyche film Reignite your creative fire with blackout poetry, which credits the influence of Austin Kleon. It is an independent project, not an adaptation of the film and not affiliated with or endorsed by Psyche, Andrew Lavers or Austin Kleon.