🖤 We Blacked It Out to Let Ourselves In: The Story of The Black Out Poetry Project

Charli Streete
Jun 15
3 min read

🌿 Creating Space for Voice

In 2025, Think Big Do Bigger CIC delivered The Black Out Poetry Project, funded by Portsmouth Creates as part of the In Our Words 25 programme. The project set out to make creativity and reflection accessible to everyone - especially those who often feel art “isn’t for them.”

Through Black Out Poetry, participants discovered how a page of old text could become a mirror - revealing thoughts, feelings, and experiences that often go unspoken. By removing words to uncover new ones, people found space for honesty, humour, and hope.

“It felt like the words were already waiting for me.”

A Blackout poetry piece created during Think Big Do Bigger CIC’s Portsmouth Creates project.

✂️ How It Worked

Over eight weeks, we delivered a mix of open community workshops and targeted outreach sessions with groups facing barriers to participation. Each workshop offered a calm, welcoming space to explore creativity at one’s own pace - no pressure, no “right way,” just time to play and reflect.

Sessions combined art, writing, and mindful conversation. Participants began by scanning pages from old books or newspapers, marking words or phrases that stood out. As they blacked out the rest, new poems began to emerge - fragments of truth, reflection, and possibility.

We saw people who hadn’t written since school rediscovering their creativity. We saw participants supporting each other, sharing stories, laughing, tearing pages, and starting again. The process was grounding, reflective, and unexpectedly joyful.

💬 Community Collaboration

Workshops took place across Portsmouth with groups including: Advance Charity, Intuitive Thinking Skills - Project W, The BASE Guildhall, North End Baptist Church, The Learning Place, and Creatful Buckland, along with two open community sessions in Victoria Park.

Each group brought its own stories - from recovery and resilience to rediscovery and community care. No two sessions looked the same, but all shared openness, curiosity, and connection.

🎨 From Workshop to Exhibition

To celebrate the work, we curated a public exhibition in Victoria Park, bringing the poems together in the same setting where many had first been created.Visitors were invited to wander among the words - to pause, read, and reflect.Some pieces were bold and graphic, others quiet and contemplative, together forming a portrait of Portsmouth’s creativity and courage.

Blackout poetry pieces at the exhibition created during Think Big Do Bigger CIC’s Portsmouth Creates project.

The project also culminated in a published book, available on Amazon, featuring a collection of participants’ blackout poems and artworks - a lasting record of the creativity and connection that emerged.

First page of the book In Our Words: Rewriting Portsmouth as part of Think Big Do Bigger CIC Portsmouth Creates The Black Out Poetry Project

🌈 What We Learned

The Black Out Poetry Project showed us that:

People engage most deeply when creativity feels safe, simple, and meaningful.
Reflection through making helps people process emotion and build confidence.
Collaboration across organisations amplifies community voice.
Seeing one’s work exhibited or published builds pride and belonging.

What began as a creative wellbeing project became a celebration of shared humanity - showing how creativity can reveal, heal, and connect.

💫 Co-create. Reflect. Change. Thrive.

The Black Out Poetry Project embodied everything we believe at Think Big Do Bigger CIC. It wasn’t just about making poems - it was about making space.Space to feel. Space to be heard. Space to belong.

And in the process of blacking things out, people let something new in - themselves.

📖 The Black Out Poetry Project book is available on Amazon.

📩 Contact: info@thinkbigdobigger.co.uk 🌐 Learn more: thinkbigdobigger.co.uk