A Thousand Splendid Suns Blackout Poems and Found Poems
A Thousand Splendid Suns, a novel by Khaled Hosseini, depicts the lives of two women facing great challenges in Afghanistan in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.
A Thousand Splendid Suns is, in many ways, the story of Afghani women. The women of Afghanistan have faced severe struggles in both public and private spheres since the early 1980s. However, it is important to recognize that acts of resistance are a regular occurrence as well, even if many of those acts are met with severe consequences. In the story, Laila and Mariam are not only victims of abuse; they also resist.
Students were tasked to go back through the novel and identify acts of resistance by the two women. They could also choose to find examples of the other themes we discussed throughout the course of the novel, including:
-Man's inhumanity
- Systemic victimization of women by patriarchal institutions
- Spousal abuse
- Resistance to victimization
- Power of Education (specifically for women)
- Absolute power and corruption
Once they identified acts of resistance or other themes, students gathered those quotes to create either a found poem or a blackout poem.
Found poems are “the literary equivalent to collage.” Essentially, found poems use words from text to highlight specific themes from that text.
Blackout poems are a more visual way of representing found poetry. The artist takes a page or two or more of text and redacts, or blacks out, words until a poem is revealed. Creative images can be used quite effectively to convey themes in blackout poems.
To read more writing by Afghan women, please check out the Afghan Women Writer’s Project.
Enjoy our found poems!