With winter break comes more downtime than you know what to do with. Looking for a way to clear my mind, I looked to blackout poetry. For anyone who has never heard of it, blackout poetry is when you take a page from a book, the newspaper, or really any text, and write your own poetry with the words on the page. You circle certain words, leaving out the rest, to tell your own story. Then, you take a black sharpie and cover all of the other words to reveal a new meaning. Blackout poetry has become a very stress-relieving, therapeutic activity for me. There is something so fascinating about taking someone else's art, and making your own from it. After reading Voltaire's "Candide," I decided to blackout the entire book.

Here are a few of the poems I have written from the text.

1. "It was my fate to be with you, near you. You have no wings but move me more than anything."

2. "Her anxiety was pitiless, but her will was strong."

3. "Words can restore the world's love, and in the same way, cause fear. But how could such a beautiful cause produce such a hideous effect?"

4. "We are only imprisoned by our own fears, curiosity can break us free."

5. "I could listen to you forever. There is no doctor in the world who could cure me of you."

6. "Everything is for the best. We all fall but will rise again."

7. "The most beautiful thing in this world is unabashed, unshakable passion."

8. "She wrote with the hope that she would feel something again."