ERASURE […] ARRESTS THE POET’S ACCESS TO UNLIMITED LANGUAGE, BIRTHING NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR INVENTION.
Erasure poetry is a playful form where you take an existing text and black out or remove words, leaving behind surprising fragments that create an entirely new poem.
The technique took off in the 1960s with artist Doris Cross's "Dictionary Columns" and Tom Phillips's innovative book-length project. Ronald Johnson famously erased Milton's Paradise Lost to create Radi Os in 1977.
Today, poets like Mary Ruefle and Jen Bervin continue to transform texts into unexpected works.
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Erasure Poetry
Click or drag to erase characters
Click or drag across characters to erase them. Click again to restore. Create a new poem by revealing what remains.
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