Saturday, November 1, 2014

Creative NaBloPoMo #1: Erasure Poem

As I flagged earlier in the week, I have decided to have a go at NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) again this year. Because this is, let's face it, a sop to myself because I am not able to properly attempt my beloved NaNoWriMo this time, I'm twisting it slightly and doing a Creative NaBloPoMo. Each post is going to be a flutter at some form of creative writing - poetry, short-short story, flash fiction, life sketches, maybe even fan-fiction.

Today, I thought I would try an erasure poem. Erasure poetry is a form of found art, where you take an existing text (a page of prose, a poem, some non fiction text) and erase words to create - or find - a poem. It can result in some unusual and lovely poetry.

I thought I would go back to some cultural and childhood roots and see what I could make of a passage that is already deeply poetic in its own right: Genesis Chapter 2, from the King James version of the Bible. You can see the original passage here. Totally appreciate all the ways in which it's problematic, but the language sings.

The place where souls are born (An Erasure poem)

God formed man of the dust
breathed 
and man became a living soul.
 
eastward in Eden
every tree pleasant to the sight, and good for food; 
the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
And a river went out of Eden 

the man in the garden of Eden

It is not good that the man should be alone

the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman
Adam said:
bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: 
Woman, taken out of Man

they shall be one flesh.
both naked, not ashamed.

- Kathy, 1/11/14

No comments:

Post a Comment