Let's Redact That

Focus on Writing: Erasure Poems

Feb 26, 2025

Oh, man, I’m almost there. Straggling, but the finish line is in sight for the 30/30 project, writing a poem every day in February. A lifesaver on this marathon has been the erasure poem.

So what is an erasure poem?

It’s a poem (or anything! Think flash fiction, short story, journal entry) that starts with text from another source. We erase words on the page to create something new with the words left behind—we may call it a poem or a thought piece or another kind of literary or visual art.

What I love about erasure poems is that I can begin without a conscious plan, just relaxing into the page to allow something to appear. Inevitably there is a pattern, a form, or idea which unfolds.

For an erasure poem you don’t need an eraser. You can use a pen to black out the lines you are taking away. Alternatively, you can cross out text on the screen. You may hear the term “blackout poem,” which, along with an erasure poem, is technically a redactive poem where your removal of text is what creates the piece.

Akin to the redactive, the erasure, and the blackout poem is the “found poem,” which one discovers in the course of one’s explorations near or far. Here are a couple of found poems I presented on YouTube. In this case, I found them in the kitchen cupboard.

For my process of redactive poetry, to keep it simple (and less scribbly), I do this:

1) Copy pages from old books. Recent texts include The Girl Scout Handbook, 1953; The Birds of North America by James Audubon, 1931; and The Cloud of Unknowing by a fourteenth century mystic.

I don’t want to destroy a book willy nilly, but sometimes I’ll use an obscure book purchased from Goodwill where half the pages are missing. It’s both lovely and satisfying to write in those faded, forgotten tomes.

2) Page before me, I circle words as my eye wanders down the page, trusting what I see instead of my intellect. I quickly circle one word or two or three, even a mark of punctuation or a footnote. If I want a longer work, I may use two or three pages of text.

There’s a tremor of joy and a shiver of wonder when the writing finds you. Art waits to be discovered, and all it needs is our willingness to look.

Here are erasure poems from my Tupelo Press 30/30 this month. Let them spark your own.

Ask me (audio here).