[dean peterson]

Interesting topic/thread, Curtis. I've enjoyed reading the erasures and the commentary. Here's my attempt:

The History of Insects

Wonder and astonishment yet
at first thought struck.


[erasure is from the text The History of Insects, author unknown. http://erasures.wavepoetry.com/erasures.php?sourceid=23 .

eta: Here's another one from the same text that adheres to the rules/keeps the word order.

The Least Creature We Can Imagine

At first thought yet when
we come to reflect we shall
be struck with wonder.

[Donna English]

Curtis, thanks for the fun challenge.

Both your poem and William's poem make my head spin. I haven't read the original text yet, so I don't know what you've erased. I'll do that soon.

Martin, your poem is really good. I did read the original text. Nice erasing!

Dean, too much erasing, imo.


This is my attempt from the text-- Buried Cities

Vesuvius

Thundered and spouted
steam and fire leap out of lava
and houses and fields.

Pompeii in time:

The people. An ox.
Casts of ashes
bellowing.


Donna

[dean peterson]

Donna, one thing I noticed when trying this out on the Wave site is how the exercise tended to push me toward some odd and unusual syntactical constructions, disjunctive images, etc., which is something I note in your erasure, all of which I think really serve you well (and/or you serve really well) for the most part. The sentence fragments feel right too, in concert with the subject matter.

[Steve Bucknell]

I found this very difficult and frustrating, started a few of the Wave texts and abandoned them. The only one that I went through with was this. I find the result disturbing, but it has a dark kind of logic.

Nice

No I wasn’t.
This town was full of women, they said,
“It will be nice for you”
They really didn’t mean anything.
God didn’t want to see,
not caring what happened,
so he found use
in some other place.
I feel that He is going
whatever happens.
If some of the women
knew how I feel
they would put me out.

It settled here years ago
and has been hatching ever since:
set back with wings spread,
hovering,
to the young, long-legged
out of the nests.

Off to xxxxxxxxxx them.

From The Melting of Molly.

[Brian Allgar]

Originally Posted by Jayne Osborn

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

Excuse me while I go and cringe in a corner

Jayne

No, Jayne, you're not the only one. I can quite see how a thread like this might be considered a "drill" (cf. "dentist"), but an "amusement"? Fortunately, I'm too old for my mind to be still capable of boggling.

Is there room for me in your corner?

[Andrew Mandelbaum]

Originally Posted by Brian Allgar

No, Jayne, you're not the only one. I can quite see how a thread like this might be considered a "drill" (cf. "dentist"), but an "amusement"? Fortunately, I'm too old for my mind to be still capable of boggling.

Is there room for me in your corner?

No one can
see



me.



In this erasure of your post, I hear you, Brian.

[Rob Stuart]

Deletedxxxx

[Rob Stuart]

Deletedxxxxx

[Brian Allgar]

Originally Posted by Rob Stuart

Deletedxxxxx
Deleted

let

deed

(This is an erasure poem from Rob's two previous poems. I find it incredibly moving in its acceptance of the fact that what is done is done, and that we should live our lives in the full recognition that we cannot change the past, nor the behaviour of others, but must come to terms with the world as it is.)

[Donna English]

Steve, I tried for a while at the Melting of Molly-- I don't know how you managed to come up with something that holds together. Yours has a Stephen King town feel to it.

Curtis and William I went back and read History of the Gatling Gun Detachment. Now I can see where the weird, scary trapped in a box in a box came from.

Donna