Genius Hour Reflection: Post Two

This week marked my first attempt at erasure poetry using Hamilton Spectator articles. It was a heck of a learning curve. 

I started with an article from the January 20th paper called "City, LIUNA reach a deal on Lister's 'missing tooth'". I thought it was an interesting title, and one that deals with continued development in Hamilton's downtown core. I knew "Missing Tooth" would be the title as soon as I read it. 

After reading the article, I went through and started picking out words that stood out to me, words that I could re-arrange or combine to find new meanings. I realized so much of the language revolved around economic progress, so I tried to follow that train of thought. You can see what that process looks like below. 

I thought it was turning out well at this point! I was pulling some meaningful phrases from the article, and while I wasn't sure how I would end it, I loved the intro. Then, in the mundane process of slowly blacking out each line, I rushed myself and accidentally erased a bunch of words that I had intended to keep, including a crucial "has" that I had to cut out from another article. 

It's unfortunate, because I think the final product is weaker than it could have been. It feels preachy and critical, without really offering anything of substance in the end. I don't know, you tell me:

Here's how I would structure the poem if it weren't in erasure form. Maybe this will help with the flow of reading it:

The city has a long term agreement

"corporate control of James Street North

purchase it

fill in the gap

submit to the structure

be part of the next stage of development."

Busy feet

value for money

Lease space on King William.

So that's week two! Here are a few takeaways from the process:

- Be careful which words you erase. Once they're erased, they're gone for good! 

- Underline words lightly with pencil. Dark lines are difficult to erase and can easily take the ink off of newsprint. 

- It's tough not to sound preachy when you have an agenda! I need to find a way to critique a little more subtly with the next one. 

I'll keep my eyes open for more articles this week and see what comes up! Looking forward to improving on the method for the next poem.