{"id":7752,"date":"2011-11-14T20:10:26","date_gmt":"2011-11-15T01:10:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=7752"},"modified":"2011-11-14T20:17:41","modified_gmt":"2011-11-15T01:17:41","slug":"erased-from-memory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=7752","title":{"rendered":"Erased from memory"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the summer, Geist<\/a> held an “erasure poem” contest, in which you had to take an excerpt from Roughing In the Bush: Or, Forest Life in Canada<\/i><\/a> and, just by erasing individual characters, come up with a poem. I wasn’t going to enter — I like Geist<\/i>, but, having entered other of their contests in the past, I wasn’t exactly aching to send them more money, even with a subscription renewal thrown in. And I’m not exactly a world-class poet. But I thought it was an interesting challenge, and before I knew it I had something I rather liked.<\/p>\n

I didn’t win<\/a>. But that’s okay. Like I said, I like Geist<\/i>. And I probably won’t<\/i> be entering their Postcard Story Contest<\/a> this year — I understand the whys of the new “make your own postcard” rule, but I can’t say it appeals — so they can have this entry fee instead.<\/p>\n

Anyway, like I said, I liked what I wrote…or, rather, what was left after I erased. And since I didn’t make the short list, I’ve got no reason not to post my poem here:<\/p>\n

a week passed
\nthe dark stranger and my husband
\nthe same horror
\nattracted their attention and
\nthey were delighted<\/p>\n

I almost screamed
\nthen followed intently
\ntheir dark eyes fixed upon the map <\/p>\n

what strange hex of names
\nevery lake and river on the paper
\nheld hard my sorry eyes<\/p>\n

I was consumed by a curious word
\nwhich had been given — a strange gift
\nto a glade fenced on three-sides<\/p>\n

a moving snake
\nor a hideous image of god
\nconceived by the most distorted imagination <\/p>\n

claws that formed hands
\na face strange and awful
\na wood of serpentine form <\/p>\n

my name<\/p>\n

I thought to demand an explanation
\nlonged to flee <\/p>\n

in the east, far over the great lake
\nthere were bad prayers made of wood
\nand this was one of them<\/p>\n

they said
\nthat hideous thing
\nthey had made with their own hands
\nwere highly amused
\nand passed the word from one to the other
\nin spite or contempt<\/p>\n

I was sorry to perceive this circus in their eyes<\/p>\n

they regarded it with mysterious awe
\nfor several days
\nthen left vexed and annoyed
\nby the height of my curiosity<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the summer, Geist held an “erasure poem” contest, in which you had to take an excerpt from Roughing In the Bush: Or, Forest Life in Canada and, just by erasing individual characters, come up with a poem. I wasn’t going to enter — I like Geist, but, having entered other of their contests in … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[78,28,53,12],"class_list":["post-7752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-magazines","tag-personal","tag-poetry","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7752"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7752\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}