Erasure Poetry

Definition:

"Found poetry" composed of words selected from an existing text (or through erasure of other text).

Example:

(from Jacob's Room by Virginia Dare)

Let us consider letters--how they come at breakfast,
and at night, with their yellow stamps and their green
stamps, immortalized by the postmark--for to see one's
own envelope on another's table is to realize how soon
deeds sever and become alien.

Virginia Dare's paragraph transforms into your own poem:

Consider letters
at night,
immortalized by
another's alien.

We'll Need:

• Colored or black paper cards
• Scissors
• Glue
• Literary journals

Process:

Find language that appeals to you
Look for nouns/verbs in vertical succession
Outline poem with a pencil
Cut the poem out carefully
Glue the poem onto paper card
Sign your poem

Young Cache Poets

Exercises to Flex Your Pen, Stain Your Paper
1. Borrowing Language: Erasure Poetry
2. Borrowing Language: 3D Erasure Poetry/Collage
3. Starting Small: Haiku
4. Starting Small: Tanka
5. Apprenticeship: Mimicking Other Poets
6. Apprenticeship: Mimicking Other Poets II
7. Apprenticeship: Mimicking Other Poets III
8. Writing from Personal Experience
9. Writing from Personal Experience II
10. Writing from Someone Else's Perspective
11. Writing about Nature
12. Writing about Nature II
13. Bookmaking (Construction)
14. Bookmaking II (Storyboarding)
15. Bookmaking III (Content)
16. Poetry Reading