by Writing Workshops Staff
An hour ago
Blackout poetry is often misunderstood as a casual exercise: a Sharpie, a borrowed page, an afternoon of crossing things out. The poet Alicia Cook has spent her career proving how far that assumption misses. Across her bestselling "mixtape" collections with Andrews McMeel Publishing, nearly half of the work is created through self-erasure of her own previously written poems, treating revision as a generative practice.
This summer, Cook is bringing that practice into a four-week online workshop, The Art of Erasure: Transforming Text Through Blackout Poetry, at WritingWorkshops.com, the official education partner of Electric Literature.
Students will work hands-on with personal writing, published texts, and public language to generate a small portfolio of finished blackout poems, develop a repeatable erasure process they can return to long after the final Zoom session, and gain a working understanding of the form's history and ethics.
Cook is candid about why blackout poetry feels so freeing for writers stuck waiting for perfect first drafts: it begins with revision rather than invention.
"You're not staring at a blank page trying to invent perfection," she says. "You're entering into conversation with existing text."
For anyone who has ever set a poem aside and never come back to it, this class offers a different invitation entirely.
Here is our Meet the Teaching Artist Interview with Alicia:
Writing Workshops: Hi, Alicia. Please introduce yourself to our audience.
Alicia Cook: Hi, I am Alicia Cook, a writer from New Jersey. I love poetry, but I also write essays professionally for labor unions and higher education. I have four full-length poetry collections out with Andrews McMeel Publishing. I advocate for families impacted by drug addiction and talk very openly about grief and mental health. I love iced coffee and sleeping.
Writing Workshops: What's the thing you wish someone had taught you earlier in your writing life, and how does this class address that?
Alicia Cook: One thing I wish someone had taught me earlier is that writing is never really "done." At least for me, deadlines are what make me submit something and finally call it finished. Before I understood that, I spent a lot of time thinking good writers magically arrived at perfect drafts, instead of revising, reshaping, and re-seeing their work over and over again.
This class is built around that idea. Blackout poetry is such a powerful example because it begins with revision. You're not staring at a blank page trying to invent perfection. You're entering into conversation with existing text, cutting away, discovering patterns, and realizing that meaning can emerge through editing as much as through writing. It teaches students that writing is a process of experimentation, instinct, and transformation, not just first-draft inspiration.
Blackout poetry also helps take away the fear of "getting it right." It invites play, surprise, and risk-taking while still sharpening core writing skills like word choice, rhythm, imagery, and voice. More than anything, it shows that sometimes the strongest writing comes not from adding more, but from learning what to leave behind.
"Sometimes the strongest writing comes not from adding more, but from learning what to leave behind."
Writing Workshops: If a student walks away from this class with one skill or shift in their writing they didn't have before, what is it?
Alicia Cook: Students will leave this class knowing how to find unexpected meaning and imagery by cutting away excess language. Blackout poetry teaches writers to trust revision as a creative tool, sharpen their attention to word choice and rhythm, and break through writer's block by showing that writing can begin with discovery instead of a blank page.
Writing Workshops: What's the last sentence you read that made you stop and reread it? Type it out for us.
Alicia Cook: Song lyrics are a huge part of my life. The song Dashboard by Noah Kahan recently grabbed me: "It ain't our fault that you aren't suddenly somebody else / 'Cause you've worked on yourself"
Writing Workshops: What's a craft move you're slightly obsessed with right now? Not a big concept, a small, specific technique.
Alicia Cook: I'm always obsessed with repetition as a craft move, especially when a writer repeats a word or phrase but shifts its meaning through context. It's such a small technique, but it can completely change the emotional weight and rhythm of a piece. I love pointing out moments where repetition doesn't even feel repetitive, especially in poetry and blackout work, where every word carries extra weight.
Spend four Wednesdays this summer learning how repetition, self-erasure, and constraint can transform the way you write.
Enroll in The Art of Erasure →Writing Workshops: What's a book you press into people's hands that has nothing to do with writing craft?
Alicia Cook: The Lovely Bones.
Writing Workshops: What's the worst writing advice that sounds smart?
Alicia Cook: "Write what you know" can become terrible advice when people interpret it too literally. It can make writers feel like they're only allowed to stay inside the exact boundaries of their own lives. I often write from personal experience, but I also love creatively expanding my universe, exaggerating details, imagining alternate outcomes, and inventing things that never happened.
Writing Workshops: Finish this sentence: "Most writing classes won't tell you this, but..."
Alicia Cook: ...the person teaching it is still a student of the craft too.
"Most writing classes won't tell you this, but the person teaching it is still a student of the craft too."
Writing Workshops: Who was your first literary crush?
Alicia Cook: Angel from Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel.
Writing Workshops: What's your teaching vibe, in one sentence, not a paragraph?
Alicia Cook: We are going to have fun, trust our instincts, and maybe unlock a new hobby.
Writing Workshops: What would your students be surprised to learn about you?
Alicia Cook: I collect Alice's Adventures in Wonderland books. I have over 60.
In four weeks with Alicia, you'll learn to cut away the excess, surface what was already there, and trust that meaning can arrive through subtraction. Whether you come to the page as a curious beginner or a poet ready to push your formal toolkit further, this is a class that promises real new work and a creative practice you can keep using long after the final session ends.
Four Wednesdays. A working portfolio of erasure poems. A new way of seeing every text you read. Class begins July 22, 2026.
Save Your Seat in The Art of Erasure →WritingWorkshops.com is an independent, artist-run creative writing school and the official education partner of Electric Literature. Since 2016, we've helped writers strengthen their voice, develop a greater understanding of craft, and forge a path to publication.
