Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Long Lace Faces (an erasure poem)

We were asked, at We Write Poems (a Thursday poetry prompt) to use a snippet of Dorothy Miller's Richardson's "Pointed Roofs" and literally erase portions of text until we came up with our own, unique poem.

Ill write it out here, but seeing it in its original erasure form is also cool, and you can try the form for yourself. So here's my erasure intact:

http://www.wavepoetry.com/erasures/erasures.php?poemid=2445

And here's the poem. See other erasures at http://wewritepoems.wordpress.com

LONG LACE FACES
an Erasure, from Dorothy Miller Richardson's "Pointed Roofs"

high, plentiful long
lace faces--
collected sense of misery
lessons were dreadful experiences of
home
a little running
her own part swollen
her fingers
so weak
had
suddenly stiffened
at the end trembling.
dreadful movements. She heard nothing
till the end and as she stood up
she pushed angry way from the
clear red-hot mass of fire
green Chartreuse blue and cream.
stupid people made her play. How angry she had been
the forgotten guest she knew
poked all the girls
her heart trembling and burning eyes
thumping stiff
feelings faint
soundlessly until the thumping began again.
evenings, hoping afresh to be alone. But
she could not discover getting rid of
miserable nervous Mr. Strood
she did him credit, once
in a way that had thrilled her...
The tournament.

2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore (Sharp Little Pencil)

14 comments:

  1. You did great with the erasure, Amy. I love the sssss sounds throughout (especially the first few lines). And, you used Chartreuse - one of my favorite words (and colors) of all time. I made my erasure based purely on that word!

    Until next time,
    Dina

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  2. It seems you and I found a bit of misbehavin' concealed in the original piece - I like this Amy... ;)

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  3. it's funny how the format changes the reading. your poem has a whole different pace in here.

    thanks for playing, Amy! glad you had fun.
    :D

    (I left you a comment at wwp, too.)

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  4. it's funny how the format chnages the reading; your poem has a whole different pace here.

    thanks for playing, Amy! glad you had fun.
    :D

    (this may not work -- I'm having trouble posting comments here. I left you one at wwp, too.)

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  5. Amy, you came up with a nice poem from this prompt. I wasn't able to pull it off, but I appreciate everyone else's efforts. Yours shines!

    http://inthecornerofmyeye.blogspot.com

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  6. Oh I like this Amy!
    Funny how different everyone's poems are!
    Pamela

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  7. I've never heard of erasure poems before; looks like fun!

    I like what you did and your phrase 'long lace faces' makes me slaver with envy.

    http://thelaughinghousewife.wordpress.com

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  8. Love what you did with this one. :-)

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  9. Thanks, Carrie. I'll roll on over to your site and check out your work! Amy

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  10. Brilliant Amy - and I too am green over the title!

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  11. Amy, you really pulled an amazing poem out of another! Love it!

    Glad that you enjoyed my smile poem and thank you so much for leaving your reason to smile--here's a labyrinth for you to explore :-)
    http://saravinas.blogspot.com/2012/06/re-lease.html?showComment=1340583560994#c5418055557086371338

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  12. You know how much I love erasures... and Amy, this one rocks!!

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