Erasure Poetry Drill (And Amusement)
 

A fan of the poet Joe Wenderoth, I happened to stumble upon the web site for Wave Books, publisher of his third book of poetry and his forthcoming fourth book of poetry, while doing a search for poems I might use in a blog post I'm planning.

Wave Books, I discovered, has a section on its web site for erasure poetry drills—really, a resource for doing some erasure poetry. Multiple source texts are listed at this link: http://erasures.wavepoetry.com/sources.php . You can click on a source, and you'll be taken to a page with that source text and be able to click on individual words and punctuation to "erase" portions of the text, creating your own erasure poem.

Because some interest in the subject of erasure poetry has been expressed on Eratosphere, I thought this would be a good chance to examine the process in more detail.

For this drill—and/or for amusement—please use one of the source texts listed at the Wave Books site to create an erasure poem, and post your poem here. Please note which source text was used, but do not include the source text here—either a note about the text or a link to that text on Wave Books's site would be best.

Comments about the process used on particular erasure poems posted here, the choices made, and general observations on creating erasure poems—especially relating to the efforts posted here—are welcome. But broad polemical arguments about erasure poetry should probably be reserved for the recent General Talk thread in which the subject already appeared or a new thread on General Talk specifically to address the issue.

I'll start things off with an erasure poem I made using the Wave Books site.

This Juncture

This juncture, the old
door, is a box
verifying just outside
the river,
and the box
had already taken up
its weight around him.
The momentum of the crowd
of panic-stricken men coming
and great presence of mind
had produced
the door. It was
the work of the river,
the water, the bubble
which lay clearly visible
only at this point
outside the basement. Just as
the door had originated,
water at once flooded
to be near,
as a measure of precaution.
 
 

[Original: History of the Gatling Gun Detachment by John Henry Parker - http://erasures.wavepoetry.com/erasures.php?sourceid=16]

I think this is a good idea, Curtis. I hope this thread will draw attention.

I forgot to mention, Curtis, I will look at your poem and let you know what I think of it, as time permits.

Anyone who is tempted to use one of my poems, please erase ALL the words.

William,

I don't think we need to replicate the General Talk thread here.

Let's please focus on drills and amusement, using this thread for those purposes. The way that many contest-related threads are used: post the results of experiments using the source texts linked in the opening post, comment on those, and not hash out broad polemical arguments pro- or con- the subject of erasure poetry. I don't expect that we can avoid all broader implications of the process, here, but I also don't expect minds will be completely changed regarding the polemical stances toward erasure poetry, and such a replication of the arguments already made in the GT thread will only derail the drill here.

Sorry! I leapt before I looked, yet again! My sincere apologies...

Noted. Other stuff deleted.

Curtis,

From your erasure of that bit of prose I get a sense of one man, since you leave the word 'him', taking great pains to separate himself from others, or from some impending disaster which is either real or only imagined by 'him'. I am not sure if the water words, such as 'river', 'water', (perhaps even 'bubble'?) 'flooded', are used symbolically or literally.

I wonder why you only use 'him' one time, and if your meaning might have been clearer had you used it again at some strategic point.

Positive things about your poem are the sense of paranoia, or actual danger, of some definite threat, and how you finish the poem with this threat reimposing itself, without resolve. As a poem, were I to judge it without knowing it was an erasure, I would rate it as pretty decent, albeit enigmatic. Sort of reminiscent of David Ignatow, if only for the poem's physical attributes as well as its decidedly "unpoetic", or prosaic, style. It also reminds me a wee bit of Henry Reed. I'm thinking of his "Naming of Parts", a poem steeped in prosaic detail which, while ostensibly obscuring or distracting attention from the horror of war, actually serves to highlight and draw attention to it. Your poem, by its use of a kind of procedural list (along with a few well-chosen phrases like 'panic-stricken'), could—and I am only saying could—be seen as highlighting one man's obsessive behavior, his dire mental condition, or a real impending problem or disaster: or a compelling, imaginative mixture of both.

I must be the ONLY person who had never heard of "erasure poetry" until that GT thread! :eek:

Excuse me while I go and cringe in a corner :o

Jayne