Source & Method: Text from the juvenile novel, Jerry Todd, Pirate, by Leo Edwards, copyright 1928. My method involves the pasting over of words in such a way as to create new messages while also providing an interesting background in the midst of the message.
Joel Best has published in venues such as Atticus Online, Common Ground Review, Crack the Spine and Apeiron Review. He lives in upstate New York with his wife and son.
Small beneath the sky,
a work in progress—the story of my life.
The hour I first believed,
bittersweet.
Family ties that bind—people of the lie,
witnessed. The body keeps the score.
Pluck the courage to heal everything,
everything.
A million little pieces
made beautiful by scars.
Living a life of awareness:
A quiet kind of thunder.
Sources: “The View from Here,” The New Quarterly Issue 143, “Small Beneath the Sky” by Lorna Crozier, “A Work in Progress” by Connor Franta, “The Story of My Life” by Helen Keller, “The Hour I First Believed” by Wally Lamb, “Bittersweet” by Mary Summer Rain, “Family Ties that Bind” by Ronald W. Richardson, “People of the Lie” by M. Scott Peck, M.D., “Witnessed” by Budd Hopkins, “The Body Keeps the Score” by Bessel van der Kolk, “Pluck” by Laisha Rosnau, “The Courage to Heal” by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis, “Everything, Everything” by Nicola Yoon, “A Million Little Pieces” by James Frey, “Made Beautiful by Scars” by Veronica Farmer, “Living a Life of Awareness” by Don Miguel Ruiz, “A Quiet Kind of Thunder” by Sara Barnard
Into the shadows, pausing
we glide along the river’s graceful turn,
and sparkle with the glint of tiny stars,
unravelling the cause of night.
As if in a dream, we were already there
above the maples, poplars, oak,
the green-roofed barns—upon the infinite
simply by thinking
and it was.
Then the star-less night sky, its darkness so clear,
we were both now as far, we were both just as near,
awake and trapped in the was of night.
See then your world as lights whirled in the dark,
and lilt of its wings on wind—all that matters.
The important part is we’re here.
Shirley Harshenin writes from her home in British Columbia. She believes in angels, caffeine, and the human spirit’s extraordinary resilience. Her work has been published and is forthcoming in Room, Contrary, Entropy: Woven and others.
Source & Method: I have been keeping a bag full of papers that I have found on the ground. I then cut out interesting words or phrases, lay them out, and wait for them to form a poem. The cut-outs contain words only found on the ground.
Betsy Littrell is a whimsical soccer mom and poet, working on her MFA at San Diego State University. She volunteers to teach poetry to under served youth and also works as a journalist.
Shloka Shankar is a freelance writer and visual artist from Bangalore, India. A Best of the Net nominee, she is the founding editor of Sonic Boom and its imprint Yavanika Press.
Source & Method: The letters of Vincent Van Gogh during the time he lived in Arles. Method: An intuitive mining of Van Gogh’s letters, to which I’ve been drawn since they were published online, and of which I’ve found new meaning through the omission of words, sentences, phrases and by coupling those words with images — they are poems that both speak to and haunt me.
Jayne is a Rhode Island-based writer and visual artist. Her work has appeared in Entropy Magazine, Rappahannock Review, [PANK] Magazine, Smokelong Quarterly, The Tishman Review, Literary Mama, Star 82 Review ,and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Bennington College.
Source & Method: Source material for the poems and collages come from the New York Times weekly magazines. I have been resourcing the NYTimes magazine for two decades deconstructing the imagery to create large format mixed media works on paper. For this new work in poetry, the NYTimes articles are equally rich in words. I treat them like a canvas painting over words with ‘Wite Out’. This method of redaction allows the viewer/reader to see the deconstruction process of the artists hand in making new connections, transforming prose into poetry, while also giving a voice to the negative space.
Lisa Berley began her career in San Francisco where she received a BFA. She integrated painting, photography and CGI in digital work. Returning to NY for two decades she exhibited abstract mixed media works on paper. Berley moved to Colorado continuing to work from deconstructed found images and recently combining it with erasure poetry.
(click on images for full-size versions)
Detail:
Detail:
Source & Method: Source material for the poems and collages come from the New York Times weekly magazines. I have been resourcing the NYTimes magazine for two decades deconstructing the imagery to create large format mixed media works on paper. For this new work in poetry, the NYTimes articles are equally rich in words. I treat them like a canvas painting over words with ‘Wite Out’. This method of redaction allows the viewer/reader to see the deconstruction process of the artists hand in making new connections, transforming prose into poetry, while also giving a voice to the negative space.
Lisa Berley began her career in San Francisco where she received a BFA. She integrated painting, photography and CGI in digital work. Returning to NY for two decades she exhibited abstract mixed media works on paper. Berley moved to Colorado continuing to work from deconstructed found images and recently combining it with erasure poetry.
Text from “The Accidental” by Ali Smith.
Sarah J. Sloat splits her time between Frankfurt and Barcelona, where she works in news. Her poems and prose have appeared in The Offing, Hayden’s Ferry Review and Sixth Finch, among other journals. Follow her on Instagram at @sjane30.
INSTABILITY
DISPLACEMENTS
Source & Method: These were originally lyrics from Roc Marciano’s opening song “It’s a Crime” off of his debut album, 2010’s Marcberg. The lyricism is packed with bravado gangster rap and I’ve attempted to turn it into a magical and surreal circus.
Benjamin Niespodziany is a night librarian at the University of Chicago. He runs the multimedia art blog [neonpajamas] and has had work published in Ghost City Press, Pithead Chapel (forthcoming), formercactus, Occulum, and a small batch of others.
Source & Method: This visual poem is from an ongoing series of collages built from phrases created unintentionally through the accident of magazine page design. Each chunk of text (roughly the equivalent of a poetic line) is entirely removed from its original sense and syntax. The text is not altered and includes no attributable phrases. The lines are sourced from different magazines.
Artist, poet, and freelance writer, J.I. Kleinberg is a Puschart nominee and winner of the 2016 Ken Warfel Fellowship. Her found poems have appeared in Diagram, Heavy Feather Review, Rise Up Review, The Tishman Review, Hedgegrow, Otoliths, and elsewhere. She lives in Bellingham, Washington, and blogs most days at thepoetrydeparment.wordpress.com.
Source Text: In the Dust of This Planet by Eugene Thacker
Method: I sought to extract esoteric meaning from a book that was itself abstruse and hard to parse. In making visual representations of alchemy I wanted to use a technique that would mirror the process of the alchemist to transmuting lead into gold so I settled on erasure and collage wherein I took existing elements and distilled them into a wholly different creation.
David Joez Villaverde is a Peruvian American multidisciplinary artist with forthcoming work in Show Your Skin, Moonchild Magazine, Ellipsis Zine, Dream Pop Press,The Fanzine, Mortar Magazine, formercactus, and Crab Fat Magazine. He resides in Detroit and can be found at schadenfreudeanslip.com or on Twitter @academicjuggalo
Method: For “Final Summer” I added the text I found on the back of the photograph. The photos’ indistinct subject struck me, why would anyone photograph such a scene? Turn it over and it becomes more clear. Sometimes we can’t recognize value until something is lost.
PJ Wren is a scientist and writer from Kensington, Maryland. Her poems have appeared in The Lake, After the Pause, and Plum Tree Tavern.
Source: Cut outs from issues of The New York Times Magazine, and New Yorker Magazine.
Kathy Douglas is writing and photographing a coffee table book of coffee table poems. She has two poems featured in the current issue of Right Hand Pointing, sympathetic magic, Issue 118. Kathy’s work can be found in Unlost Journal, Calyx, Drunken Boat, The Cafe Review, Noctua, Right Hand Pointing, After The Pause, shufpoetry, and Poetry WTF?! She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Bennington College.
Method: I combined magazine clippings as well as some of my own photos to make this collage. The words “me too” are handwritten. My intention was to show a variety of female body parts, disconnected, mixed into a world of beauty. Women are often told to make themselves beautiful–and then blamed for looking so appealing: “How could the man resist?”
Source: A few of my own photos, but mainly magazine images and words from The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Good Housekeeping, and one or two more that I cut out awhile back and no longer have the magazine covers to cite.
Mary Ardery’s poems and photos have been published in A Midwestern Review, Manuscripts, and Eye on the World. After living and working in Asheville, NC’s Blue Ridge Mountains for two years, she has returned home to the Midwest to pursue her MFA at Southern Illinois University.
Source: Durjoy Dutta’s novel, Till the Last Breath
Method: I found this book in the trash box and thought about putting it to some good use. I had learned about blackout poetry some years back and thought about trying it. I soon turned into an addict of sorts. Blackout is like journaling to me. I always find myself.
Asma Firdous is doing her BA(Hons) in English literature and struggles with discomfort and restlessness in everything she does.
Sources: Flying includes cut outs from issues of The New York Times Magazine, The Sunday New York Times, New Yorker Magazine, and local advertising circulars. Selected words and punctuation marks are made by hand.
Process: Part chance and part deliberation, the coffee table poems are written by selecting words and phrases based on size, color and themes. Starting with a loose selection process, choices progress organically towards themes. The cut out “bank” of text is placed on the table and moved around to find connections.Then poems are written by synthesizing syntax, meaning,design, and elements of poetry. Initially written in one sitting, the editing process may last through the week, provided the dog doesn’t fan the table with his tail.
Kathy Douglas is writing a coffee table book of coffee table poems. She recently completed a book of blackout poems entitled On The Ward of Omens based on Mary Daly’s Beyond God the Father: Toward A Philosophy of Women’s Liberation. Work can be found in Calyx, Drunken Boat, The Cafe Review, Noctua, Right Hand Pointing, After The Pause, shufpoetry, and Poetry WTF?! She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Bennington College. medium.com/@kathrynd Tweets @kathydouglas