I am the first to admit that I do not always turn to books of poetry when I need something to read. But for whatever reason, I saw this little 75-page book in the airport a couple months ago and was drawn to it. It sat on my bookshelf until a couple of days ago when I picked it up and read it in a day.
As such, I hope this finds you well by
is my book of the week.Here’s why I loved it:
Erasure poetry1 is a genre I can get behind. In fact, I can’t wait to erasure a little beauty from the hate mail that occasionally shows up in my inbox!
It’s the turning upside-down and over to create into an exquisite thing of redemptive beauty that I love so much. You send me hate mail about a God-ordained, complementation version of the patriarchy. My reply reminds you to “find satisfaction in your excellence,” every single word of which originally came from you.2
It’s accessible poetry for the human who’s not sure whether poetry can actually be accessible. See also: me.3
So, read this. You just might like it!
Your thoughts?
From poets.org: “Erasure poetry, also known as blackout poetry, is a form of found poetry wherein a poet takes an existing text and erases, blacks out, or otherwise obscures a large portion of the text, creating a wholly new work from what remains.”
It reminds me of how Rachel Held Evans used to turn hate mail into beautiful origami cranes. Beauty found in the most unlikely of places!
Speaking of erasure poetry and accessible poetry,
and I are starting to put together some writing workshops around these very topics. What else would you like us to cover? Stay tuned!
Love this!! And can’t wait to make magic with you!!