Ten years ago my grandmother gave me a collection of old books that a neighbor was throwing out. They weren’t worth anything and couldn’t even be read because the pages were so old and brittle. I’m a sucker for books though and despite having absolutely no use for them, I couldn’t bear to see them thrown away.
They were beautifully displayed on an antique bookshelf and I loved looking at them them, but they took up a lot of space and I was working on downsizing. So I started finding some semi-practical uses for them.
I made center pieces for my graduation party (ahem…English major here), decoupaged pages onto canvas that I painted and drew over, used book covers to make tiny purses for gifts, all sorts of totally random (but incredibly creative) things.
One of my favorites though was when I was stuck in bed in a flare for several weeks and was out of my mind with boredom, so I used some pages to make black-out poetry.
I know, I’m such a f*cking nerd. But I love black-out poetry.
So, please enjoy some of my favorite black-out poems.
Also, some big news, you can now read Shut Your Dirty Mouth in the new Substack app for iPhone.
You’ll have a dedicated Inbox for my Substack and any others you subscribe to. New posts will never get lost in your email filters, or stuck in spam. Longer posts will never cut-off by your email app. Comments and rich media will all work seamlessly. Overall, it’s a big upgrade to the reading experience.
If you don’t have an Apple device, you can join the Android waitlist here.