#erasure poetry

[buttonpoetry]

Progressive erasure from I'd Rather Be Destroyed https://buttonpoetry.com/product/id-rather-be-destroyed/

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Found Poetry

Found poem - a form of poetry that comprises borrowed text from different sources.

Poets borrow words, phrases, or passages from sources like novels and news articles for found poems.

Assembling the sourced texts brings a new meaning unique from the words or phrases’ original context.

Types of Found Poetry

Blackout poetry: Blackout poetry is a form of found poetry in which the poet takes an existing work—an article, a short story, or even another poem—and uses a pen or marker to black out certain lines, words, or phrases to reinterpret the original work.

Erasure poetry: Similarly, erasure poetry involves using whiteout to cover certain words. In both forms, poets create new text to celebrate or subvert the intention of the original work in some way. Graffiti that covers up words on buildings or signs may be a kind of erasure poem.

Cut-up poetry: Cut-up poetry involves cutting words out of source materials and rearranging them to create new meaning.

Ways to Write a Found Poem

You can create found poetry using books, magazines, or digital sources:

Craft a haiku. For those new to this type of poetry, creating a haiku works as an introductory writing prompt. A haiku, a Japanese poem, has three lines: the first has five syllables, the second has seven, and the third has five. To create your poems, try the cut-up method: Find words or phrases that total the syllables in each line and arrange them in a way that elicits new meaning from the found text.

Gather physical text sources. Cut out hardcopy sources like a book or magazine, then paste the words together to create found poetry.

Find digital sources. You can create a found poem from existing texts online. Write out a new poem by hand, or copy and paste words on your computer into a document.

Write in free form. Because the individual source materials will likely have their own rhythms and vocabularies, found poetry is usually written in free form; spacing and line breaks are at the poet’s discretion.

Create a blackout poem. To try a blackout poem, read an article and decide how you’d want to reimagine its text. Then, using a marker, black out specific headings, phrases, and paragraphs, leaving behind words so as to create a new work from the source text.

Examples of Found Poetry

A found poem involves a poet taking pre-existing language and reworking it into a new artwork. Consider the following examples of found poetry:

Book compilations: American poet Bern Porter published multiple volumes of found poetry, including Found Poems (1972).

Sarcastic poems: The humorists Hart Seely and Tom Peyer wrote “The Man in the Moon” (1979), reworking lines spoken by New York Yankees announcer Phil Rizzuto to reflect on the death of Yankees catcher Thurmon Munson.

Literary magazine: The poetic form even sparked its own literary magazine, The Found Poetry Review, in print from 2011 to 2016.

Blackout poetry: he New York Times bestselling author Austin Kleon has popularized the blackout form in his book Newspaper Blackout (2010), in which he redacts newspaper articles in permanent marker.

A Brief History of Found Poetry

Poets have created found poetry in various ways across artistic movements and history:

The cento: The cento, which originated in the third century, may have been the original found poem. A cento poem is a work of poetry that is composed of various lines taken from different poems. The word “cento” is derived from a Latin word meaning “patchwork garment”—and a cento poem is just that—patchwork poetry (also known as a “collage poem”). With cento poems, a writer can pay homage to another poet, or use lines from another work for satire purposes.

Dadaism: In the 1900s, visual and literary artists brought new meaning to source materials and pre-existing texts. The popularity of found poetry mirrored the Dada movement. Dadaist Marcel Duchamp’s 1917 work Fountain was a readymade sculpture that was simply a porcelain urinal. Outside of its original context, the work invited a new perspective and interpretation. During this time and in a similar artistic vein, poets like William Burroughs began experimenting with cut-up poetry, rearranging words in new order.

Modernists: In the twentieth century, poets like T.S. Eliot, Brian Gysin, and Ezra Pound included found text from various source materials in some of their works.

Media: Today, poets can create found poetry using digital sources and share works on social media platforms. For example, best-selling author Kate Baer creates found poetry by redacting comments on her social media pages.

Source ⚜ More: Notes & References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs ⚜ Part 1

[transmisc2]

this is was actually my first erasure poem and i really liked it and have done more since

[zinesbyrowan]

erasure/blackout poetry zine!! this one was so much fun, even though the poems themselves tend toward depressing imagery or subject matter. I need to figure out how to make printable PDFs of my zines so I can make more interactive bits like in this one and share them more easily! I really encourage you to try making erasure poetry out of anything you have access to, whether that's old poetry books from school, or prose books you own that you don't like or don't read anymore, or even writing your own poetry to use! hope you enjoy :)

[rain-rainynights-side]

you are valid. even when the world tries to erase you or revert because of perceived gods, it does not erase the truth you cannot change and you live by everyday. and if the world will keep on trying to ignore or tell you how it thinks you should live and love, i will tell you just as blatantly that you are valid in the ways it attempts to erase. and i will say those three a hundred, a thousand, a million times over and over if it can bring you an ounce of solace: you are valid

[stepfordwivespoems]

An open-mind

has no emotional

secretaries

—

Source text: Levin, Ira. The Stepford Wives. New York: Random House, 1972. Print. Pg 33

—

[crosswire]

an erasure of part i of alfred lord tennyson's "the lady of shalott" / photography by myself, @adamshallperish , & @willemdamonstercock

[lauperart]

Journal thoughts with washi tape and stickers •3•

[ragewrites]

Earlier tonight I stumbled upon an archived interview with the author of a so-called Odyssey ‘retelling’ that left me so incensed, I had to make an erasure out of it just to feel as though something positive has come out of the encounter.

[faintpress]

ice

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Found Poems

Found poetry - created by extracting words, phrases, or longer pieces from a source text and using them to make a poem, reflecting the sequence in which they appeared in the original.

The illustration shows a found poem:

Unlikely options Found in the page Surprising poetry Successfully free In prose pages Visual modes Remarkable experiments Such poetic expression

ERASURE POEM

The result of electronically deleting words from the source text, leaving a residue that is read downwards to form the new poetic text.

The words can be left in their original locations on the page, or can be reorganised into conventional poetic lines.

BLACKOUT POEM

Emerges when a marker pen is used to hide most of the words on a page, leaving a similar residue.

Source ⚜ Word Lists ⚜ Notes & References ⚜ Writing Prompts

[andreablythe]

I've just made the digital PDF version my first poetry chapbook, Your Molten Heart / A Seed to Hatch, available online (free or pay what you'd like): https://andreablythe.itch.io/your-molten-heart

[third-thoughts]

Erasure poetry on "The True Life of Cyric", is this anything?

"Hail Cyric, woo!"

[immaculatenothing]

October 2, 2024: I'm too close to You

keeping twice the silence —

No electricity ;

i am a dying light.

you'll see another strand of change

winding in the dark

away

quietly

so quick

away and free

down the hallway

to the window

and out

___________________________________________________

Erasure/found poem. Source text: The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin. (Blackstone Edition, Ashland, OR, 2024, pp. 6-8.)

[transmonstera]

laugh in the face of transphobia and be to each other what they will never be to you - an erasure poem about trans resilience and finding joy in your and others' transness using the recent anon message i got lol

[IMAGE ID: a tumblr anon where all transphobic parts are taken out leaving the following: "you laugh at people when they cut you open. you're huge to each other, because who would be enough to them for looking like someone else, except for most who ever lived. there are grey stars decorating the sides of the image. END]

[stepfordwivespoems]

The bullshit changed

into a house

on fire

—

Source text: Levin, Ira. The Stepford Wives. New York: Random House, 1972. Print. Pg 85

—