What is Erasure Poetry?
Creating a poem by selectively erasing words from an existing text.
Erasure Poetry: Crafting New Versions from Textual Scraps
Erasure poetry, sometimes referred to as black-out poetry, is a form of creative writing that involves selectively whiting out or crossing out words from a pre-existing written work. The goal is to extract a new piece of poetry from an original text by revealing a previously unnoticed arrangement of words and phrases. The words left standing are often mashed together, and new connections form between them to convey a new or reconstructed sense.
As a form of modern poetry, erasure poetry can draw attention to the intersection of language, creativity and authorship. It is a technique employed by writers, poets, and visual artists who delight in the creative manipulation of language. The end result of an erasure poem is a palimpsest- a layered, fragmentary structure that enhances the tension between the original text and the extracted lines.
The rich history of erasure poetry is linked to a wide range of literary, cultural and social contexts, making it a fascinating genre to explore for many critical and creative writers who work in English. As a means of literary expression, erasure poetry allows writers to interrogate what is not said, what is omitted, and what can be inferred from the (often conscious) deletion of words.
Erasure poetry is a poetic approach with many possibilities and has been used in various ways in literature. Here are two examples of how it has been used by contemporary writers.
This poem titled Steal Away is a classic example of erasure poetry, where the author(C.D. Wright) uses a page from an old Episcopal prayer book and selectively blocks out words to create a new poem that explores themes of religion, race, and freedom.
In Raymond Chandler's book The High Window, the detective assigned to a case finds a series of letters written between the victim and her adopted family. Upon close inspection, the detective realizes that clues to the murder can be found by paying attention to the gaps in the letters left by the series of redactions, creating a form of erasure poetry that serves as a key in solving the case.