Really interesting dilemma, X.P., and I really appreciate the walk-through of your thinking on the subject, to include some especially good links to others' thoughts, as well.
I'm a longtime practitioner of erasure poetry but do notice that people tend to fall into two camps around the genre. Jane Greer is one poet who absolutely rails against erasure. If I understand her correctly, she sees erasure as unethical from the jump. (She has a point, but I disagree with it.) Other poets have asked me to create erasures from their poems. (I think an element of self-promotion figures into such requests, but I don't mind.) Thanks for giving your perspective here. Saying that erasure rarely moves you is clear and indisputable. ;)
XP - I'll be circling back to this post, to this conversation.
Stopped in to tell you that, and to thank you for this post. I have strong feelings and strong opinions on this topic. I'm seeing immediately a difference between Zong! and The Ferguson Report on one hand, and courtroom testimony on the other.
I wouldn't use the courtroom testimony for a variety of reasons, all based in how I feel about it, but I can make a case for using it.
Longer conversation than I have time for today.
Let me offer to you - and anyone else here who would like to - to host a Zoom discussion at some point in the future.
I think this question falls into the general category of "Should I do it, just because I can?"
For me, it's analogous to the question of disclosing, in a memoir, invasively intimate details about the life of a deceased person who was not a public figure, particularly if those details are not material to the memoirist's account.
Yes, the dearly departed isn't here to experience the violation of his privacy. But he may be survived by people whose memories of him will be affected by it, and total strangers will see him only in an unflattering light.
Why do authors include such details? For revenge? To introduce a note of prurience or sensationalism? From sheer cluelessness?
I have discerned all these reasons and more, separately and together, in published memoirs.
Finding this kind of material in the manuscript of a memoir can raise questions about the author's character, questions that an editor may prefer not to confront. This isn't the only reason I chose not to work on memoir manuscripts in my years as a book editor. But it's the main one.
I too wonder about invasively intimate details about the life of a deceased person, especially if it feels gratuitous. I am put off if I feel there is a "for effect" aspect to the inclusion. Thinking about how to avoid what feels like an invasion of privacy (for people living or dead, even though the details are material to my memoir) has been an obstacle for me in my own memoir writing.
People come out on different sides of these questions.
Sometimes the violation of a dead person's privacy really is egregious and does point to a character-related issue. Those cases seem not to require much thought.
Other times, people make a good case for approaches I don't agree with. And I don't say those approaches are invariably wrong. I just know what I'm willing and not willing to do.
Tracy K. Smith has written a brilliant erasure poem (link below) using the Declaration of Independence as her source text. There are so many layers to this piece and the experience of this piece for the reader. The best art requires/incorporates risk. I appreciate the nuances you have considered when choosing to take a leap, as outlined in this essay.
I’ve never written an erasure poem. I admire your skill in working with them, X. P. Tracey K. Smith’s poem is extraordinary; thank you, Victoria, for the link. Lots to think about in this piece. Not sure if I have the fortitude to wander in that direction. If I do, I know where to turn.
I am in agreement with this sentence: "I could also make a strong case that the unfinished erasure poem, like any other erasure, represented a type of collaboration." I could imagine a collaboration could give more freedom and power to the woman who testified (or, conversely, amplify how little freedom or power she had in that context, as well as in the rape). I would be excited to read such an erasure poem.
Regarding your footnote, I appreciate your thoughts on the word "victim." I am not in agreement with this part of your footnote, "And mostly because the rape is not hers. (Somebody should tell NPR.) What is hers is the trauma, with its continuing effects. The rape belongs to the rapist—who, for the record, is also not hers. (Somebody should tell the New York Times.)" As someone raped as a young woman, I agree that the trauma, with its continuing effect is hers. In my own experience (although I do not univeralize this), I think of the rape as being mine (mine to experience in the moment and in my body, mine to metabolize) and, in a strange way, the rapist as being mine too (in the sense that we experienced a brief encounter and relationship that I believe impacted us both forever). It has been an enormous challenge to find words to describe my ownexperience and not anyone else's generic idea of what rape is. For example, the feminist statement from the '70s was "Rape is power, not sex." But my own rape experience was about sex...our two bodies were intimately connected, even though I did not choose it. And it was about powerlessness as well as power. He held power over me and yet was powerless over his lust and compulsion. I was powerless in the face of his strength and gun but had power in my humanity and presence and bearing witness. I claim this rape as mine in the way I claim every unchosen, difficult experience (birth, loss, accident, illness) as mine.
I imagine you are saying, more or less, what Florida-Scott Maxwell meant when she wrote about claiming the events of one's life and becoming "fierce with reality."
I can't disagree with your experience, and I appreciate your not seeing it as universal. And of course I am very sorry this happened to you, which you know, since we have talked about the rape before.
I object to NPR, the New York Times, and other media thoughtlessly using the possessive pronoun to link women to rapists, and to the acts of rapists, as if your experience *were* universal--if they even think about it that much, which I doubt.
Yes, I think it fits well with Florida Scott Maxwell's "fierce with reality." Some life experiences are so singular and particularly "mine" that the effort is not in the claiming but in finding words to describe the experience in a way that communicates it to others. I so appreciate when a writer can bypass the universal and give voice to that singularity. I can understand your objection to the media's houghtless use of the possessive pronoun.
I am saving your essay, X.P., to return for repeated contemplation. But I wanted to enter the conversation as it is unfolding here, even though I admit my thoughts are incomplete. I am in the camp of people who love erasure poems, and I've written many and published some.
Several lines of thought emerged immediately upon reading "A Note on Ethics" for the first time. One is: do our words--the ones we choose and how we string them together--belong to us? to the speaker? to the listener/reader/viewer? When we use words to speak our intentions and meanings, we implicitly gift our words and invite a response, spoken or not. Inevitably, (incontrovertibly, I would argue) a responder will echo (in whole or in part) words, meanings, intentions, images, sounds, gestures, etc. It is the very definition of communication, which you begin to explore in your essay, X.P. I believe (as of now & until convinced otherwise) that erasure poems offer the original writer/speaker's communication as a variation, not as a diminishment.
The trial transcript will never be "erased" or forgotten or changed by someone's response to it. Maybe "erasure" poem conjures up the negative for some folks, as in "making some of another person's words go away." I see it differently--some words are preserved, responded to, respoken/rewritten, offered back. It is the kind of reciprocity most (if not all) of us want when we speak, isn't it?
Thanks for this, Celeste. A major facet of this conversation, one not really addressed here,* is self-censorship, the most effective way for writers and artists to be silenced.
* You should have seen this piece before I edited it down.
Isn't self-censorship a response to fear--fear of how or what others will say, do, think? Or are you thinking of self-censorship as the writer's response to rules, laws, limits, mandates that exist to punish if not obeyed?
Really interesting dilemma, X.P., and I really appreciate the walk-through of your thinking on the subject, to include some especially good links to others' thoughts, as well.
I'm not big on erasure as a form, either extracted or in situ. It rarely moves me.
I'm a longtime practitioner of erasure poetry but do notice that people tend to fall into two camps around the genre. Jane Greer is one poet who absolutely rails against erasure. If I understand her correctly, she sees erasure as unethical from the jump. (She has a point, but I disagree with it.) Other poets have asked me to create erasures from their poems. (I think an element of self-promotion figures into such requests, but I don't mind.) Thanks for giving your perspective here. Saying that erasure rarely moves you is clear and indisputable. ;)
XP - I'll be circling back to this post, to this conversation.
Stopped in to tell you that, and to thank you for this post. I have strong feelings and strong opinions on this topic. I'm seeing immediately a difference between Zong! and The Ferguson Report on one hand, and courtroom testimony on the other.
I wouldn't use the courtroom testimony for a variety of reasons, all based in how I feel about it, but I can make a case for using it.
Longer conversation than I have time for today.
Let me offer to you - and anyone else here who would like to - to host a Zoom discussion at some point in the future.
I think this question falls into the general category of "Should I do it, just because I can?"
For me, it's analogous to the question of disclosing, in a memoir, invasively intimate details about the life of a deceased person who was not a public figure, particularly if those details are not material to the memoirist's account.
Yes, the dearly departed isn't here to experience the violation of his privacy. But he may be survived by people whose memories of him will be affected by it, and total strangers will see him only in an unflattering light.
Why do authors include such details? For revenge? To introduce a note of prurience or sensationalism? From sheer cluelessness?
I have discerned all these reasons and more, separately and together, in published memoirs.
Finding this kind of material in the manuscript of a memoir can raise questions about the author's character, questions that an editor may prefer not to confront. This isn't the only reason I chose not to work on memoir manuscripts in my years as a book editor. But it's the main one.
I too wonder about invasively intimate details about the life of a deceased person, especially if it feels gratuitous. I am put off if I feel there is a "for effect" aspect to the inclusion. Thinking about how to avoid what feels like an invasion of privacy (for people living or dead, even though the details are material to my memoir) has been an obstacle for me in my own memoir writing.
Yes, I imagine so.
People come out on different sides of these questions.
Sometimes the violation of a dead person's privacy really is egregious and does point to a character-related issue. Those cases seem not to require much thought.
Other times, people make a good case for approaches I don't agree with. And I don't say those approaches are invariably wrong. I just know what I'm willing and not willing to do.
Tracy K. Smith has written a brilliant erasure poem (link below) using the Declaration of Independence as her source text. There are so many layers to this piece and the experience of this piece for the reader. The best art requires/incorporates risk. I appreciate the nuances you have considered when choosing to take a leap, as outlined in this essay.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/147468/declaration-5b5a286052461
That is such a great example of the genre. Thanks for linking to it.
Very insightful and helpful – all the way through the footnote.
I’ve never written an erasure poem. I admire your skill in working with them, X. P. Tracey K. Smith’s poem is extraordinary; thank you, Victoria, for the link. Lots to think about in this piece. Not sure if I have the fortitude to wander in that direction. If I do, I know where to turn.
I am in agreement with this sentence: "I could also make a strong case that the unfinished erasure poem, like any other erasure, represented a type of collaboration." I could imagine a collaboration could give more freedom and power to the woman who testified (or, conversely, amplify how little freedom or power she had in that context, as well as in the rape). I would be excited to read such an erasure poem.
Those may have been the very thoughts that occurred to this poet before she stopped work on the poem.
Regarding your footnote, I appreciate your thoughts on the word "victim." I am not in agreement with this part of your footnote, "And mostly because the rape is not hers. (Somebody should tell NPR.) What is hers is the trauma, with its continuing effects. The rape belongs to the rapist—who, for the record, is also not hers. (Somebody should tell the New York Times.)" As someone raped as a young woman, I agree that the trauma, with its continuing effect is hers. In my own experience (although I do not univeralize this), I think of the rape as being mine (mine to experience in the moment and in my body, mine to metabolize) and, in a strange way, the rapist as being mine too (in the sense that we experienced a brief encounter and relationship that I believe impacted us both forever). It has been an enormous challenge to find words to describe my ownexperience and not anyone else's generic idea of what rape is. For example, the feminist statement from the '70s was "Rape is power, not sex." But my own rape experience was about sex...our two bodies were intimately connected, even though I did not choose it. And it was about powerlessness as well as power. He held power over me and yet was powerless over his lust and compulsion. I was powerless in the face of his strength and gun but had power in my humanity and presence and bearing witness. I claim this rape as mine in the way I claim every unchosen, difficult experience (birth, loss, accident, illness) as mine.
I imagine you are saying, more or less, what Florida-Scott Maxwell meant when she wrote about claiming the events of one's life and becoming "fierce with reality."
I can't disagree with your experience, and I appreciate your not seeing it as universal. And of course I am very sorry this happened to you, which you know, since we have talked about the rape before.
I object to NPR, the New York Times, and other media thoughtlessly using the possessive pronoun to link women to rapists, and to the acts of rapists, as if your experience *were* universal--if they even think about it that much, which I doubt.
Yes, I think it fits well with Florida Scott Maxwell's "fierce with reality." Some life experiences are so singular and particularly "mine" that the effort is not in the claiming but in finding words to describe the experience in a way that communicates it to others. I so appreciate when a writer can bypass the universal and give voice to that singularity. I can understand your objection to the media's houghtless use of the possessive pronoun.
Yes, (over)reaching for "universality" makes for bad writing.
I am saving your essay, X.P., to return for repeated contemplation. But I wanted to enter the conversation as it is unfolding here, even though I admit my thoughts are incomplete. I am in the camp of people who love erasure poems, and I've written many and published some.
Several lines of thought emerged immediately upon reading "A Note on Ethics" for the first time. One is: do our words--the ones we choose and how we string them together--belong to us? to the speaker? to the listener/reader/viewer? When we use words to speak our intentions and meanings, we implicitly gift our words and invite a response, spoken or not. Inevitably, (incontrovertibly, I would argue) a responder will echo (in whole or in part) words, meanings, intentions, images, sounds, gestures, etc. It is the very definition of communication, which you begin to explore in your essay, X.P. I believe (as of now & until convinced otherwise) that erasure poems offer the original writer/speaker's communication as a variation, not as a diminishment.
The trial transcript will never be "erased" or forgotten or changed by someone's response to it. Maybe "erasure" poem conjures up the negative for some folks, as in "making some of another person's words go away." I see it differently--some words are preserved, responded to, respoken/rewritten, offered back. It is the kind of reciprocity most (if not all) of us want when we speak, isn't it?
Thanks for this, Celeste. A major facet of this conversation, one not really addressed here,* is self-censorship, the most effective way for writers and artists to be silenced.
* You should have seen this piece before I edited it down.
Isn't self-censorship a response to fear--fear of how or what others will say, do, think? Or are you thinking of self-censorship as the writer's response to rules, laws, limits, mandates that exist to punish if not obeyed?
I would love to read your additional ideas!