Day 21 - NaPoWriMo Challenge - Erasure

I love the notion of giving several people the same raw ingredients and witnessing the variety that blooms.

Today's NaPoWriMo challenge was an opportunity for me to play that game, by starting from the same original page as the sample to create my "erasure" poem.  Certainly a darker theme here (and not at all autobiographical, I hasten to add).

(As typewritten text):


remember
I grew up with them
New England born,
almost all
stone

individual histories
were never referred to
if, indeed, these were known

my great-grandfather
(planted near the doorway)
passed away,
and was spread over the countryside
by his descendants

none of my family ever called

a small boy,
it was my job
to turn the meat-chopper handle
as we ground them
to be sure

Day Five - Emily Dickinson: Disassembled

Today's NaPoWriMo prompt was to take an Emily Dickinson poem, remove all the punctuation, and then re-break the lines, adding or removing words in order to make something new.  

I took that suggestion to the extreme, typing out all the words to "A not admitting of the wound" into a column, and then rearranging them copy-paste fashion into groups by parts of speech with the windows Paint accessory.  All this as preparation to begin playing with them as though they were refrigerator poetry magnets. I built my poem up from scratch, based on how the words called to me.  

Below is a .jpg rendition of the result.  The stray words at the bottom were my leftovers.

I enjoyed this exercise!  I am always interested in how different artists can use the same raw materials to arrive at unique outcomes (give or take a few one and two letter words).

The original poem, by Emily Dickinson:

A not admitting of the wound

A not admitting of the wound
Until it grew so wide
That all my Life had entered it
And there were troughs beside -

A closing of the simple lid that opened
   to the sun
Until the tender Carpenter
Perpetual nail it down -


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Can be found by Clicking Here

Day Minus One (prompt-driven, impatience-delivered)

Too Late 

I guess it's too late for coffee

Not quite right for chocolate either

The moment is calling for massage
Long, slow breathing
Leaning into, luxuriating

But all I have are twist-untied wrappers
And quiet telephones
And empty inboxes

I guess it's too late to reach for you
Not quite right for rejection

The moment is calling for awareness
The birdsong is calling for the usual mystery

And I am no longer lonely.

Can be found by Clicking Here