I’ve become interested in erasure poetry again. I’ve been looking through Pinterest for ideas and found some really good examples. As in the past, doing erasure, or blackout, poetry is a good exercise for me. It’s kind of like a puzzle looking through text for words and phrases that resonate, then putting them into a cohesive piece. This is a very rough first draft of text from an article about Clichés. The image is a photo I took of Street Art which I printed out on copy paper. I tore the image of the woman from the rest of the photo and glued it on the text, leaving the chosen words visible. I scribbled out the other text – I don’t really like the effect but I’m playing around so, no worries right now. Then I took a photo and here it is. One thing I learned is not to draw the black lines so close to the chosen words as it can bleed onto the words, partially obscuring them.
I have another idea for this text and image that’ll be totally different from this one. I can’t wait to construct it!
Clichés exist but
in the end
the script is merely
a suggestion that women
try to avoid
I constructed this old-school but I would like to find a good, easy photo shopping app to play with. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Charlotte Hamrick 
Soooo long since I’ve done this! Overdue. Thanks for the nudge.
Re process, I think there’s something in the physical marking up/out of text that contributes to the yield (for me, at least) through tactile contact.
You could scan the image and text and save as separate .jpgs – then black out unwanted text with PS or PSElements – then paste image over as layer and resize to not obstruct view of desired text.
But truly, your heavy black lines (Sharpie?) boxing in the chosen and the partial view of the discarded create an appealing effect.
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GIMP is a free, open-source editing program. It can be slower and less “flowing” than Photoshop, but it’s free, and I’ve gotten used to its quirks.
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