So the assignment this time was erasure poems, where you take a pre-existing text, and by erasing, blacking or whiting out or otherwise obscuring words, create a new text to create a new meaning. There's a blog of examples over here. The text I chose was a page out of a trucker's atlas. I chose the state of Michigan because I've been fascinated by the decay of Detroit, the fact that the Midwest prairie has slowly begun to reclaim its suburbs. I tried to make that be what my poem was about. Here's what the poem looked like:
Sorry about the crap stitching job; the thing was too big to fit in my scanner all at once. You can click the picture to get a closer look. I started with a jar of white acrylic and a little brush, painting in little sections at a time while leaving words or word fragments that I thought were interesting or useful. I also tried to leave in roads and highways. Once I had the map whited out, I connected all the words in order by drawing a pathway of sorts. You can see where it starts in the upper right hand corner with the words "How to determine distance". By connecting the words with this new path, I sort of "redrew the map." I could go into how this inverts the map as a tool of orientation by disorienting the maps original meaning, academic speak, blah blah blah.
Jonathan Safran Foer has just published a new erasure novel, where he cut the pages of an already existing novel so what you get is a bunch of windows in each page that sees through to the next pages. I guess it's really modern in that is forces the reader to question how the book is supposed to be read. Search for Tree of Codes and you'll find all sorts of reviews and discussions of the book and its meaning as an art object. The most interesting aspect about his book (to me, anyways) is how its very existence questions the assumption that physical media is becoming obsolete. I mean, it's a book that cannot exist in a virtual form. The pages are the things; you have to be holding a physical copy in your hands to read it properly.
Got a little off track there. The actual text of the poem, if you were curious, would read thusly:
How to Determine Distance
Mileages in between red
in between intersections
of symbols
rest area (no )
Free Limited
Scenic Route
For an explanation see
Michigan
State
Land Area: (22)
Population: (8)
Largest City:
To do
be Detroit
as I can
and be each
as I am as I
Rock 570 ft. above sea level
and win sex war
arming Troy for
Romulus
born ill
no no
enter Hell
right on
Reading Eden on California
EAT LIVING BRANCH
Battle Assyria Nashville Vermont Middle Alaska
Grand Crooked Climax Mend
Gosh
Bend Ganges Three Rivers
lend zoo A Covert Haven
I
579 ft. above sea level
go
and Have A new live
ego
Man Bas-
ing A New Era
O
N
NEW White Cloud
and held on
Man is A Fountain A Peacock
MAN Bite!
Me sick FOR Nirvana
Me ill in a Crump Duel
AND COMMON man Buckle
IS A City in a land
Pleasant
Paris Remus Sparta
Win
CALM AT Ithaca
Butternut on Pompeii
In John 27 57
Eureka
Shepards SEE
and so gain in Sleepy Hollow
A Wooden Shoe Village
COMB Good Brow
Gag MAW
Grind Stone each Bad Axe
or run
