Turning Messages Of Hate Into Poetry of Love

Came across this yesterday. It’s a really cool blog called God Loves Poetry. It’s a group of people subverting the hateful message of Westboro Baptist Church. Turning their anger into messages of hope with a black marker and some creativity. It’s a simple act, but it reminds us just how inspiring and powerful a simple act can be. How long do you think Westboro will continue to do this kind of “news release” once they know that this is going on? Do you think they will respond, if so, how?

Here’s a write up from the NPR blog:

Westboro Baptist Church is also a prolific publisher of press releases that often contain the same rhetoric found at their protests. The press releases are an opportunity for the church to spread their ideas, using phrases such as “Military funerals have become pagan orgies of idolatrous blasphemy,” “America is a nation of sodomite hypocrites,” and “God hates fag-infested & fag-enabling Lincoln, NE.”

To Kevin Cobb and Andres Almeida, though, the press releases have become an inspiration for a counter-protest in which they create poetry utilizing bits and pieces of the press releases.

Cobb and Almeida, a couple from south Florida, recently launched a blog called GodLovesPoetry.com. In each blog post, they take a printout of a Westboro Baptist Church press release and begin redacting it with a black marker. They keep redacting and redacting until all that’s left are a few words that create a poem that turns the original rhetoric of the press release on its head. They then create an artistic representation of the poem and redacted text, which they upload to their blog.

via Mashup Turns Messages Of Hate Into Poetry Preaching Love : All Tech Considered : NPR.