Sunday, February 16, 2020

Loose End from El Paso: Tumblewords Project: Erasure


Returning to El Paso from Juarez. November 2016.




One year ago today, February 2019, I attended the Tumblewords Project led by Gustavo Enriquez. I remembered him from a previous workshop, on corporeal poetry, I believe, in which his poem about a part of his body blew me away with its fresh creativity.

So on this day, Gustavo walked us through erasure poetry, which was new to me. It also goes by blackout poetry.

Gustavo distributed several stacks of magazines and old books around the horseshoe of workshop writers, inviting each of us to select a few pages from this or that, and then to black out what we didn't want from a text, leaving visible a poem. 

I mined two pieces from the ore.


It's Not Personal

The birds,
They see the wind.
That wind means no harm.

The earth turns.

Life intends to not cause pain.

The storm come and it pass.

The sun shines.


After the Storm

Up early.

The sun, drink.

Ready for

Recovering

Recovering

From failure.

We,

We,

We,

In the rainbow, sat quiet in the brightness

Purring to

Sleep.





P.S. Talking about erasure reminds me of a witty, biting, sometimes hilarious book by the same name, written by Percival Everett.














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