Wordplay

In class, we began discussing blackout poetry by looking at examples of Austin Kleon’s work. While he was stuck with writer’s block, he created a variety of poems simply by taking newspaper around him and crossing words out with a black marker. Words or phrases that interested him he left on the page and eventually a poem was made. Blackout poetry is traced back to centuries ago and with new technology has begun to be used again. I created three poems using the newspaper I was given. Although seemingly an easy task, it was difficult to connect the words together to have an understandable poem. At first, I was only looking for interesting words, but as I went along, I realized how interesting it was to find phrases to use. I changed the entire meaning of these phrases by incorporating it along with other words in my poem. After finding the words and phrases I liked, the most difficult part of the task was connecting them together. I then had to try and find connector words like “is”, “to”, “and”, “a.” These helped me connect my poem and create more of a flow.

For this task, we were asked to create ransom notes. Ransom notes usually involve different fonts and styles of letters from different sources. They are often cut up in the way shown above at a random order to spell out a demand. This is a form of wordplay because different letters from different places are being used to create an entirely new message. Our task was to create a ransom note that looked visually appealing from the sources we were given. I created the demand, “Give me the cookies at midnight and you can keep your job,” because it was funny and something that stands out from other phrases. To go about this, I went through the newspaper and attempted to find various different letters. At first, I was looking through the newspaper, cutting out letters at random that I thought would add contrast. After a while, I realized it was easier to start forming my words, so I began looking for each word. I tried to cut letters from multiple different pages, looking for interesting backgrounds, different size fonts, capital letters and more. I realized the more contrast in type I found, the better it looked. Eventually, I created my demand and decided to stick it on a pink piece of paper so it would stand out. This ransom note reminds me of Mean Girls and the pink “Burn Book” with letters.

Overall, working with wordplay was fun. It opened me up further into the world of creating messages and new meaning to words. Working with material already provided is an interesting way to create something new. I learned it is all about modification and putting your own style into something existing.

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