Maureen Wolff  |  Contributing Writer

With National Poetry Month rapidly approaching in April, events will be held across the nation to celebrate a diversity of authors and poetic styles. Forget the saying that poetry is dead. If anything, poetry is undead (think zombie), with original forms living on indefinitely through the evolution of newer subgenres like blackout poetry.

Blackout poetry was popularized by writer and author Austin Kleon, who started creating blackout poetry in 2005 by crossing out and circling phrases on old newspaper pages. After his work gained publicity, the budding genre exploded into a new poetic movement.

Blackout poetry, as it is known today, consists of crossing out parts of a text to create a new combination of words. Sophomore pre-engineering major Mallory Wink enjoys blackout poetry because it bypasses the formidable task of penning poetry from scratch.

“I think staring at a blank piece of paper can be a little intimidating for those who aren’t used to expressing their creative side,” said Wink. “So, looking at a page that has words available to you … seems a little less intimidating, and offers a little more structure that some may need if they’re just beginning to attempt any type of poetry or creative writing.”

Follow these three easy steps to create your own blackout poem:

• Pick a text. Thrift stores are a great place to look for old books, and you can often score secondhand books for a couple bucks at places like Salvation Army or Goodwill. Newspapers work well too, but chunky fiction and fantasy novels offer more pages to work with and often contain more vivid language than newspaper pages.

• Grab a pen. A thick-tip black marker will work best if you’re looking to completely black out the words you’re not using. If you want unused words to remain readable, consider using a thinner pen in a lighter color.

Voila! You’ve created a poem that is undead, an old piece of writing preserved but altered into something new.

If you’d rather not pull apart a book, some websites offer tools to make blackout poetry electronically. The New York Times website features a page on which users can create a blackout poem from an old Times article. A blog called the “Redactive Poetry Project” offers a bookmarklet tool that can be installed and used to create a blackout poem using any online text.

In need of a little inspiration? Tumblr features a wide variety of blackout poetry posts and blogs. To find out more about National Poetry Month, visit the Academy of American Poets website or track #npm15 on Twitter.