Connection Edit: Shine
Jessica Maybury
www.thejessicamaybury.com
@codenamewallaby
Connection Edit: Shine is a black and white zine collection of blackout poetry. If you’re not familiar, blackout poetry is where you take a piece of text and black out words so the words remaining – your poem – reads as something different to the original.
So if you’re thinking ‘so it’s just a bunch of blacked out words’, then this zine may not be the zine for you. Or you could stick around and let me win you over with my review.
It’s been a while since I’ve sung this particular tune, so I’ll mention that poetry is not a strength of mine. I often don’t understand it and miss whatever points were being made. That being said, I have a strange fascination with blackout poetry.
The text for these poems come from a book called ‘Shine’ given as a gag gift and the last magazine Jessica’s nana read before the end. (Sorry for your loss.) I found the juxtaposition of flippant and serious a strange one, but I wonder if it was intentional in showing that you can make serious out of funny and vice versa no matter what the text.
The poems can be a little hit and miss, but when it hits, it does so in ways I love. Phrases like “To My Nobody” and “You have to shine bright” stuck with me and made my mind drift pleasantly from the poem at hand. No big spoilers here, but the poem on page 7 is definitely my favourite.
I found myself rebelling at the thought of ever finding out what the original text read beneath the swathes of black.
Honestly, I missed the aesthetics for the words on the first read through. I was so focused on words and possible meaning, but I don’t see that as a bad thing. I am glad that I went through to check out the visuals because I liked the various washi tapes and pictures used.
If you’re curious about blackout poetry, check out this zine.