I'm thinking it's a really good time to be an erasure artist. Perhaps that makes me more open to seeing the creative process as equal parts collage and erasure.
Picasso famously said, "Every act of creation begins with an act of destruction." He was referring to knowledge, but of course the quote is more widely applied as a kind of "out with the old, in with the new" approach to creative process. Perhaps poets would be more enthusiastic about revision if the idea were less about word-revision as a live-or-die matter. Rather, replacing and/or removing words just puts them into storage, which can be retrieved again in future revisions if desired.
Love this! Just looking at a long poem about Atlases--very, very full of images from Medieval maps, and from me! So hard to let any of them go, but I know some must leap off the edge of the continent, er, page.
Such good information, Radha. And sometimes I feel compelled to trim right down to the nibs.
pun intended
I'm thinking it's a really good time to be an erasure artist. Perhaps that makes me more open to seeing the creative process as equal parts collage and erasure.
Picasso famously said, "Every act of creation begins with an act of destruction." He was referring to knowledge, but of course the quote is more widely applied as a kind of "out with the old, in with the new" approach to creative process. Perhaps poets would be more enthusiastic about revision if the idea were less about word-revision as a live-or-die matter. Rather, replacing and/or removing words just puts them into storage, which can be retrieved again in future revisions if desired.
I love the idea that all the words go into storage. Even the ones that get scrambled on the page. They are, after all, words.
Love this! Just looking at a long poem about Atlases--very, very full of images from Medieval maps, and from me! So hard to let any of them go, but I know some must leap off the edge of the continent, er, page.
Erasing!❤️