Elbow grease

After years of doing erasure poetry, I only recently discovered that you can literally erase the print from some books. Just put an ink eraser to the page and start rubbing. Use care. You won’t erase it completely but the unwanted words will fade signficantly. Then you can cover them with white pastel or colored pencil more effectively. 

It is a bit of work and I realize there are ways to do this digitally, but I like a handmade look. Half the time I use a digital tool, it’s retouching for the sake of getting letters to fade. 

Elsewhere, if you’re interested, I’m taking part in an Instagram collage challenge this month called #februllage. I may not post a collage or visual poem every day, but I have managed so far. My page is here. I posted a Misery poem for yesterday’s prompt, which was fragile. Today, for layers, I fished the scraps in the photo out of the trash bin beside my desk. When I posted it on Instagram this morning the scrap with text said “someone speaks ….. thought out.” Only later when I was taking a walk did it strike me that I should snip off the thought, as it appears here.

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