Erasure Poetry

("I Am Anything" by Ruth Bavetta)

One of my favorite new artforms to develop recently is that of the erasure poem. It is a type of 'found poetry', which is poetry that is made by recontextualizing another literary work. Erasures are poems made by blocking out or erasing words from passages or pages from other texts. The idea of found poetry itself is still relatively new, not even a century old, and erasure poetry newer still.

I love the aesthetic of most erasure poetry. Go to Pinterest or Google or whatever you use and look up "erasure poetry". You will find some of the most visually stunning uses of blocking out or breaking up text. Some people have gotten incredibly creative with these projects: using the unused text as a canvas for pictures, blocking out texts in design patterns, connecting the blocked texts together, and much more. White space is meant to be impactful for poetry, and it is. But can it rival the chaos that encompasses these erasure poems?

What most of the erasure poetry lacks is a citation of the original text. I always wonder what the text is, and how the new poem is related. What do they say about one another?

It's magical what we can do with words. Even with someone else's words.

I have recently dabbled in erasure poetry. I found the website ErasureMaker and clicked through about three random texts before I came to a passage from Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper. I will share both the original passage and the poem that came out of it at the end.

The Yellow Wallpaper is a very intense early feministic short story about a woman whose confinement and fixation on the wallpaper of her room basically causes her to lose her mind. It's a close look at how women's mental and physical health were treated in the 19th century. It's one of the more entertaining pieces of literature from the time frame. I understand all too well that most modern readers have a difficult time enjoying older literature, but many pieces have extreme elements if the wording can be fielded through. This short story doesn't involve a lot of action, but it explores the narrator's mind as she begins to believe she is actually trapped within the wallpaper of her room. The ending image of a woman creeping next to the wall and walking in circles, stepping over a fainted husband, is one that sticks with you for a while.

My erasure poem is about time's continuous circling, which echoes the ending of The Yellow Wallpaper in a surprising way for me. It creeps in the same way as the woman, with no logic other than itself. This was a fun experience as a writer because the poem made itself clear to me, rather than me having to invent it. The first thing you do when creating an erasure poem is to delete unimportant and unimpactful words. The most impactful words for me were "immovable" "nailed down" and "by the hour". The rest of the poem followed naturally after that.

I invite everyone, even if writing is not your forte, to try their hand at this creative art form. You'll be surprised with the results!

Original text from The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman:

"I lie here on this great immovable bed-it is nailed down, I believe -- and follow that pattern about by the hour. It is as good as gymnastics, I assure you. I start, we'll say, at the bottom, down in the corner over there where it has not been touched, and I determine for the thousandth time that I will follow that pointless pattern to some sort of a conclusion.

I know a little of the principle of design, and I know this thing was not arranged on any laws of radiation, or alternation, or repetition, or symmetry, or anything else that I ever heard of.

It is repeated, of course, by the breadths, but not otherwise."

Erasure poem "By the hour" by L.D. Humphrey

"I lie here

immovable

nailed down

by the hour.

I start

at the bottom

in the corner

where it has

touched

for the thousandth time

I will follow that pointless pattern

of conclusion.

I know

little

of design

I know this

was

arranged on

laws of

alternation

repetition

symmetry.

It is repeated."