This week’s Poets & Writers‘ prompt asks us to write poems of erasure:
Write an erasure poem: Rip out one or two pages from a magazine or newspaper. Read through them, underlining words and phrases that appeal to you and that relate to each other. Using a marker or WhiteOut, begin to delete the words around those you underlined, leaving words and phrases that you might want to use. Keep deleting the extra language, working to construct poetic lines with the words you’ve chosen to keep.
For this week’s prompt, I randomly selected an old magazine from a basket of rolled up magazines in the bathroom. I then randomly selected a page, tore it out, and started highlighting. The page I selected comes from the April 19, 2010 edition of The New Yorker, pages 33-34. As instructed, I went through the lines, marking words and phrases that struck me. Here’s the list:
War-zone show and tell
Who else has stolen the ashtray
Liberated
Ugly and ungainly outfits
Breaking sanctions pretty
Ladies had been sewing
What sounded like an American marching hymn
Rwandan tourism
A burka for Barbie
Deconstructing before my eyes
Disappearing before my eyes, man
Dark, wide and bouncy
In a flash of shock and awe
A generation of college kids on to the roots
Elegant primitivism
Looks like a seascape
It departs from perspective
Hear the bells, Wolf said
Illuminate the night
The feel of the darkest hour
The kind of yellow he used
A friend suggested he hunt
Muttering, it has to be cadmium yellow
Midnight souvenirs
Resulting in a thick impasto of sound
Inky background
You’ll hear the bells
Slim of shank
Among the green revelers
Gobsmacked, squinting
The icebox. The kitchen table
Filled with moving
A white plate
Biggest bookie
Big walk-in icebox downstairs
Spoke german. In the front
Pointed at an avacado
At night I have possums
Through the cat door, and they bring their babies in
Hot-dog festivals, that I’m a champion hot-dog eater
Bando never did it
A gnarled two-foot-long stick
It’s a walrus penis
The next step was to try to create some meaning out of the random words and phrases I’d selected. I also began the process of breaking the lines into stanzas (also to help with meaning). Without altering too much the original lines, here’s what I came up with:
War-Zone Show and Tell
I wanted to know who else had stolen the ashtray,
liberated the ugly and ungainly thing,
breaking all the sanctions pretty
ladies had been sewing.
What sounded like an American marching hymn
Spilled from the Rwandan tourism office that sold
burkas for Barbie, Barbie,
deconstructing before my eyes.
Disappearing before my eyes, man.
Dark, wide and bouncy,
In a flash of shock and awe
a generation of college kids held on to the roots
of elegant primitivism
looking for a seascape
departing from perspective.
Hear the bells, Wolf said, how
They illuminate the night.
The darkest hour felt like
the kind of yellow he used.
A friend suggested he hunt, but Wolf kept
muttering, it has to be cadmium yellow.
His paintings of the bells at night,
midnight souvenirs, a thick impasto of sound
on inky background.
You’ll hear the bells
slim of shank among the green revelers.
Gobsmacked, squinting, we stood by
the icebox. The kitchen table
filled with moving white plates
and a sketch of the biggest bookie in town.
Next to the big walk-in icebox downstairs, Wolf said
they spoke German in the front,
and then pointed at an avocado.
At night I have possums come in
through the cat door, and they bring their babies.
He never talks directly of the war. Instead,
It’s all abstraction. I’m a champion hot-dog eater, he said,
Bando never did it. And then picked up
a gnarled two-foot-long stick. Do you know what this is?
His face is scarred wonderment. It’s a walrus penis!
Finally, I went through what I had and attempted to make an actual poem of out it. This time, I didn’t worry so much about holding on to the original lines (although I did hold them wherever I could) and I messed around more with stanza breaks. My main goal was to get the narrative straight. In a poem that is essentially fragmented and confused intentionally, narrative becomes extremely important so as to not lose the reader – even though the desired effect is to have the reader become somewhat disoriented, forcing her to rely more heavily on implied meaning and emotional content. Miraculously! The first line that I highlighted on the page works beautifully as a title of the whole piece. Here’s the “final” draft. Of course, as with all of these prompts, it still needs a substantial amount of work before being an “actual” final draft. Enjoy!
War-Zone Show and Tell
I wanted to know the story behind the stolen ashtray,
a liberated, ugly and ungainly thing. Wolf laughed and said he was
busy breaking all the sanctions pretty ladies had been sewing.
He hummed a few bars of what sounded like an American marching hymn,
the sound he remembers spilling from the Rwandan tourism office
that sold burkas for Barbie. Barbie, deconstructing before my eyes.
Disappearing before my eyes, man.
His face is dark and wide, he’s bouncing around the apartment talking
about shock and awe, a generation of college kids holding on to the roots
of what he calls “elegant primitivism,” then takes out a painting of a small boat
lost on a seascape departing from perspective.
Hear the bells, Wolf said, how they illuminate the night.
I think I understand. It is late and the darkest hour feels like
the kind of yellow he used. A friend calls to suggest he go hunting,
but Wolf keeps muttering, it has to be cadmium yellow.
His painting of the bells at night, midnight souvenir, is a thick impasto
of sound on inky background. Listen, he whispers, you’ll hear the bells
slim of shank among the green revelers.
Gobsmacked and squinting, we stand by the icebox. The kitchen table
filled with white plates and Wolf’s sketches of the biggest bookie in town.
Next to the big walk-in icebox downstairs, Wolf returns long enough
to tell me they spoke German in the front and then points at an avocado.
At night I have possums come in through the cat door,
and they bring their babies. He rarely talks directly of the war. Instead,
it’s all abstraction, puzzle pieces. I’m a champion hot-dog eater, he says,
Bando never did it. And then picks up a gnarled two-foot-long stick.
Do you know what this is?
His face is scarred wonderment. It’s a walrus penis!
Excellent.
I added your site to my favorites
.
Elena
Thanks, Elena!
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