Blackout poetry pages from 40 classic novels, with a how-to guide

Blackout poetry turns a page of someone else's words into a poem of your own, and this kit gives you 40 beautiful pages to start on. You get 48 pages in total: excerpts typeset like real book pages, a step by step guide, three technique samples, word hunt tips and pages for copying out your finished poems. Both US Letter and A4 PDF files are included as an instant download, and nothing is shipped.

Every excerpt is taken from a public-domain novel, and the source is credited at the foot of each page.

How these blackout poetry pages get you writing

The text is set in a generous serif with plenty of space between lines. That leaves room to circle the words you love, link them with lines and cover everything else without smearing your keepers. The guide takes you from a first slow read to picking anchor words, reading your poem aloud and inking it in, while the technique page shows real finished samples of three styles.

Stuck on a tricky page? The word hunt tips offer glue words, a dozen themes and quick five-minute challenges. And since these are printable pages, you can run the same excerpt off again and discover a totally new poem each time.

Who will love this found poetry kit

• Poets and writers looking for a fun way around the blank page
• Readers who treasure Austen, Alcott, Montgomery and Burnett
• Collage makers and art journalers who enjoy creating on printed text
• Anyone craving a quiet, screen-free creative hour with a pen and marker
• Curious teens and adults who want to try erasure and found poetry

Design and print details

• Minimal, elegant white pages with soft blush pink accents that go easy on ink
• Generous margins all around, so a home printer trims nothing
• Portrait layout, sized A4 (210 x 297 mm) and US Letter (8.5 x 11 in)
• A header on each excerpt page names the book and author, and below roughly 180 to 270 words sit a line for your poem's title and date plus a credit to the source
• Excerpts typeset like a real book in a large, widely spaced serif, ideal for circling and covering words
• All texts are reproduced word for word from public-domain novels that first appeared between 1811 and 1911, credited on every page
• Undated, so any day is a good day to begin
• Ready for a binder or clipboard, or spiral binding at a print shop

Inside the blackout poetry kit: 48 pages

1. 1Cover, plus a contents list sorted by book and page
2. 2Six steps for making a blackout poem, from a first read to covering what is left, with supplies, paper and print tips, the only rules and a plan for your first poem
3. 3Three techniques, blackout, circle and connect, and highlight, each shown on a real excerpt with tips and the poem it produced
4. 4Word hunt tips on where to search and how to get unstuck, 18 glue words, 12 themes, 7 quick five-minute hunts to check off and lines to save words that caught your eye
5. 5 to 9Five passages from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, taken from Chapters 1, 4, 34, 43 and 58
6. 10 to 12Three passages from Austen's Emma
7. 13 and 14Two passages from Austen's Persuasion, the opening lines and Captain Wentworth's letter
8. 15 and 16Two passages from Austen's Sense and Sensibility
9. 17 to 21Five passages from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women
10. 22 to 26Five passages from L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, among them the White Way of Delight and the world where there are Octobers
11. 27 to 31Five passages from Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden
12. 32 to 37Six passages from Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows
13. 38 to 40Three passages from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
14. 41 and 42Two passages from Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass
15. 43 and 44Two passages from J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan
16. 45My found poems index listing all 40 excerpts, with a column for each poem title and a done column
17. 46Finished poems, with two boxes for copying poems out neatly, each noting the title, which excerpt, the technique used and what the poem means to me
18. 47Poem keepsake page for the one you love most, with why I kept these words and an art box
19. 48Poem collection, four small boxes for poems and space for favorite lines gathered from all of them

What you download

• Blackout Poetry Pages, US Letter PDF (48 pages)
• Blackout Poetry Pages, A4 PDF (48 pages)
• Read Me First, a brief PDF guide to printing

How to download and print

• Check out with PayPal, a debit or credit card, Apple Pay or Google Pay. Your download page opens as soon as the payment goes through.
• We email the same private download links to you, so you can download your files again later.
• Open the PDF in a free reader such as Adobe Acrobat Reader and print at 100% or Actual size.
• Print only the pages you need, as often as you like, for your own personal use.

Good to know

• This PDF is meant for paper and real markers. You can also bring it into a note taking app and cover words with a stylus.
• You receive a digital file only. Nothing physical is mailed.
• Printed colors may look a little different from your screen.
• Personal use only. Sharing, reselling or redistributing the files is not allowed.
• Digital files cannot be returned. If a file will not open or print correctly, email us and we will help right away.
• The excerpts are public-domain texts. No book, marker or paper comes with your order.

How this was made

Designed and written by PetiteDiary. AI tools helped draft parts of the text, and some background scenes in the preview images were created with AI. Every page was designed, reviewed and checked before release.

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