Writing Found and Headline Poems

(from Getting the Knack: 20 Poetry Writing Exercises,
by Stephen Dunning and William Stafford; excerpted from pages 3-5)

"A nice thing about 'found' and 'headline' poems: you don't start from scratch... You find interesting, ordinary 'prose'... Plenty of strong and beautiful poems are made from plain language... So, poems hide in things you and others say and write... This exercise is about keeping your ears and eyes alert to the possibilities in ordinary language...

"Find from fifty to one hundred words you like...

"Copy in the sequence in the language you found. Double space between lines so it's easy to work with.

"Study the words you found. Cut out everything unnecessary... Try to cut your original find in half... Change punctuation if you need to... adding your own words to the found words is 'illegal' [but] when you're close to an edited-down version, and you truly need to add a word or two  ̶  to smooth things out, to make sense, to make a point  ̶  you may add up to two words of your own... Make other little changes, too  ̶ tenses, possessives, plurals, punctuation, and capitalizations.

"Read your cut-down draft one more time... Put the words into your notebook, spacing or arranging them so they're poem-like. (Sometimes you'll put key words at the ends or beginnings of lines. Sometimes, for interest or surprise, you may want to break up words that often 'go together').

"At the bottom of the poem, say where you found the original."

Unmuzzled, Unfettered

My collection of found poems includes ekphrasic collages inspired by works of art from Shakespeare to Charlie Mingus, centos of famous poets from Maxine Kumin to Dylan Thomas, and erasure poems from biographies, novels, and sources as unexpected as an astronomy text and online dictionary.

Here's a sample, an ekphrasic poem written while listening to the Charles Mingus Quintet playing "Alice's Wonderland," published first in Slow Trains Literary Journal, Fall 2005:

alice’s wonderland 

mingus
jarring jazz
magic tunnel
chute

o my desire is spreading 
sweet notes
raucous
jiving down
ears tuning to the treat

if i could eat this sound
i would be drugged
into the fancyland
of new tunes

never tasted fruit
tender meat
purple peals
all-night dreams

if i were feathered
charlie
i would sing
of you in birdland

Toward the River

During National Poetry Month, April 2013, I wrote a found poem a day from Pulitzer Prize-winning Michael Cunningham's The Hours, available in Toward the River: Found Poems.

Fifteen pantoums capture the dramatic arc of Cunningham's four main characters in several poems each. The remaining fifteen poems are erasures that playfully depart from the novel. 

The title poem, "toward the river" is drawn from Cunningham's remake of Virginia Woolf's death:
 

a coat too heavy
seems like nothing
she does not travel far
the voices are back

seems like nothing
searching for a stone
the voices are back
merely a gifted eccentric

searching for a stone
headache is approaching
merely a gifted eccentric
under a darkening sky

headache is approaching
dreaming of the surface
under a darkening sky
into one of the pockets

dreaming of the surface
the current wraps itself
into one of the pockets
they won’t let her go

the current wraps itself
stripes of green-black weed
they won’t let her go
moment of true perception

stripes of green-black weed
she does not travel far
moment of true perception
a coat too heavy

NOTE: In the classic pantoum there are repeating lines as indicated above. and there's an ABAB rhyme scheme, but contemporary pantoums do not require the ABAB rhyme scheme.

The Eye Perceives

We shape our dreams
already half asleep
this play of colors
fabrication, whirlwind
of vertiginous
rising, descending
a black background
changing form and color
different lights, visual dust.

Wonder at this gray
here and there
phantasmagoria
brilliant reality
slow and gradual, deep
ceaselessly in so little space
sometimes on fire
emanating from the heart
awakening.
 
How does this happen?
Our dream spreads its waves
and moving forms with
sensation of different levels
flying or floating in space
wind playing its chromatic scale
against the tongs in the ears
sensations of buzzing, floating
feet not touching the luminous.
 
Notice this also
when we free ourselves
we are astonished.

Found poem from Dreams, by Henri Bergson.

installation

Zenith Telescope
mounted with unlikely
play of light

changes the form
of morning itself

In response to the challenge to compose a poem on the theme of Art metalwork using fifteen words from pages 18-19 in Publications of the University of Pennsylvania. Astronomical series, by University of Pennsylvania, 1963.  (I used one of the fifteen words as the title.)

A "Dog-Ear" Found Poem, "Puffy Frogs,"
from Eudora Welty's short story "Livvie."

Villain Villanelle

a central casting pantomime
the worst actor at center stage
but many others stand behind

myriad compromises signed
merely the face of deeper malaise
a central casting pantomime

email hackers, secrecy, lying
a misogynist's childish rampage
and many others stand behind

the rich who want their pockets lined
cabinet appointments, all depraved
a central casting pantomime

lest you and I go out of our minds
impeachment fantasies from backstage
but many others stand behind

always the cover-up, never the crime
at which of these villains do we rage
in a central casting pantomime
where many others stand behind?


(Source"Donald Trump isn't the only villain -- the Republican party shares the blame," Jonathan Freedland, the guardian)

PoMoSco (Poetry Month Scouts)

During National Poetry Month, April 2015, I was among 213 poets representing 43 states and 12 countries in The Found Poetry Review's project PoMoSco (Poetry Month Scouts), working toward 30 found poetry merit badges. "These aren't your childhood merit badges! PoMoSco participants had the chance to earn up to 30 badges in April by completing poetry challenges in five categories: remixing, erasure, out and about, conceptual and chance operations." 

Click on these posts to see my poem for each badge:

Remixing
Pick & Mix: "the world's continuous coming-into-being" 
Interrogator: "Did You Understand a Word?"
Haiku Anew: "Haiku Roku"
Pinch An Inch: "the instinct of mountains"
Blender: "The Eye Perceives"
First in Line: "The Days Have Done With You" 

Erasure
Open Book: "A Handmade Card"
White Out: "powerful visions" 
Redacted: "frustration" 
Click Trick: "A Good First Line"
Picture It: "How to Abide"
Cut It Out: "So Ordinary"

Out and About
All Ears: "I've Learned Enough For This Lifetime"
Order's Up: "Fundido"
Interloper:  "Is Paris Wise?" 
Off the Shelf: "Beneath Their Canopies"
Crowdsource: "How Yin and Yang"
As Advertised: "Extravaganza"

Conceptual
On Demand: "new route to old roots"
Substitute Texter: "Smoking the Modern Coyote" 
Survey Says: "Something Else is Here"
X:Y: "torn by terrible conflict"
Quiet on Set: "Do We Understand Each Other?" 
Best Laid Plan: "Anti-Marriage Rally"

Chance Operation
Shake It Up: "the glare of the serpent-haired sun"
Roll the Dice: "An Armadillo-Leprosy Link Had Long Been Suspected" 
Chance Walk: "Center for Sports Jones"
Spaced Out: "the films of Woo"
Spelling B: "The Martian Mauna" 
Dialed In: "Undercover"

objection

someone may be too

serious and askew

do you really think

the material world exists

because everything

is actually made up

not substantial

a forum, a death

in this moving universe

bodies are bhajans

a trickle in neurons

nothing to cling to

you and I, the grass

across the seas

equally de sus,

a mystery we call God

Found poem from closed captions of Deepak Chopra’s “God is a Verb” on YouTube 

 

to be self-contained, sufficient

when the torture started
dreams of suffocation
steadily expanded

different angles
different times of day
in hands, in feet

press lips to every square inch

                                         

birds' harsh sounds    

float above pain                                      

nauseated and numb        

                            

wish to transcend

tedious and oppressive

obligatory secret torture

like asking a blade to cut itself

Found poem by Mary Bast 

(From "Backbone," an excerpt from The Pale King, fiction by David Foster Wallace,

New Yorker, March 7, 2011)

What is Water?

Choose how you construct meaning   
if not you will be hosed.

Worship beauty, feel ugly 
worship power, feel weak  

worship smart, feel stupid  
 
on the verge of being 

found out, unconscious  
gnawing sense of lost truth:

This is water. This is water
and it commences now.

Found poem by Mary Bast
(From David Foster Wallace’s commencement address
to graduates of Kenyon College, 2005)

Bast Revision of Waldrop Revision of Declaration of Independence

Below I have substituted synonyms of Rosmarie Waldrop's substituted words in "Shorter American Memory of the Declaration of Independence," where she replaced key words in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence with the seventh next word in a dictionary.

We wail these engagements to be outlawed, that all Endangered Species are acclaimed central, that they are suffered by their Grantee with naped irrefrangible perimeters, that among these are Electrical Discharges, Scoundrels, and the Curricle of Disembowelment. — That to inveigle these perimeters, Decorums are cocooned among Endangered Species, discussing their budding fitness from the plasticity of the disemboweled. — That whenever any Credo of Decorum becomes apprehended of these bitter leaves, it is the Perimeter of the Piquant to coat with atomic number 13 or to abhor it, and to shield theoretical Decorums, straining its stylograph on such literature and determining its utility in such credo, as to them shall seize most violaceousness to emit their Cunning and Disembowelment.

Birmingham, 1963

Four Girls Jubilee

Bobby Frank Cherry
didn't hide. His hatred 
danced in a white robe 
at the 16th St. Baptist Church.

Four counts of murder:
Denise, Cynthia, Carole, Addie Mae.

Sometimes he was teary
then checked himself,
At least they can't grow up
to have more n-----s 

Bobby Frank installed the bomb
beneath the stairwell, returned
the next day, lit the fuse, regretted
doing it then instead of later

when the church
would have been full.


Found poem by Mary Bast from "The Ghosts of Alabama," Newsweek, 5/26/02 and other news articles.

the angle of the sun

circle of pin oak’s shade
water moving gently
shadows shortening
as if teething on the lake 

in shallows half hidden
honeysuckle and lilacs



Found poem by Mary Bast
(From "Good People," fiction by David Foster Wallace,
New Yorker, February 5, 2007)

I've Learned Enough for This Lifetime

My whole life has felt like being on stage
without a script; I thought she was
going to take over. It’s more fun
when someone else is watching.
He drinks to come out of his shell;
I’ve been getting this big
message from the universe –
migraine and cluster headaches.
I try to avoid boredom.
He hung you out to dry.
I love him — I just don’t want
to be bounced around;
I’m desperate to find
the light, but when I move
out of my comfort zone
the fear is unbelievable;
letting go is like a black vortex.
I want to let things settle for a while.



To earn the ALL EARS badge, I was to take a public journey, keep an open ear to conversations around me, jot down overheard phrases and words, then craft a poem composed of those fragments. These are from conversations overheard in the reception area at a therapist's office.

Extravaganza

Hilarity, Romance, Musical Comedy: 

The friendly, festive, Wallenda circus family
give a bouquet of lush jasmine patchouli
on Mother's Day, dance universal peace
to the famous 1812 Sabre Dance Waltz
on a musical carousel with acrobats
and two frozen musketeers, warning
about the sword fighting concert.

The Flying Addams Family,
fun, magical, and macabre kids,
do something amazing --
give blood while juggling balloons
on a community tightrope between
The Thomas Center Galleries
and Disney's Cultural Affairs.


To earn the badge, AS ADVERTISED, I created a poem using only words found on the posters and fliers at Book Gallery West on 16th Blvd. in Gainesville:

A Good First Line

For PoMoSco's CLICK TRICK badge, I scanned a page as .jpg and created a computer-based erasure using the eyedropper tool for background colors, obscuring text until only the words of my erasure poem remained.  

Source text: “The Songwriters’ Songwriter,” by Robert Sullivan, The New Yorker, April 21, 2015

Anti-Marriage Rally

I don’t support marriage—
we all know that. But I would
happily attend a christening,
although I am Christian. 

I’d go to the wedding of someone close,
also to the wedding of someone not close.
I would be handing out anti-marriage
pamphlets at the reception.

I would not attend the wedding
of my worst enemy, but I’d definitely
be surprised to be invited. I might go,
because I would like a friend.

In a hypothetical universe in which I am straight,
I suppose I would go to my own wedding.
In this scenario, I’d want marriage to be legal.
Wait, can I just go with my initial statement?


To earn the BEST LAID PLAN badge, we were to plan to remove something from a source, keeping as much as possible of the remaining text intact. 

I deleted the words gay and lesbian and text not referring to marriage/ weddings from “Gay Events That I, Marco Rubio, Would Go To,” by Colin Stokes, The New Yorker, April 17, 2015.

Is Paris Wise?

A small inheritance, off alone
to study avant garde art, bold
gesture, a little risqué, reaching
for the apple, first time out,
rebel capturing a moment.
Unusual riches – affinity
between women sitting free
and easy, knee over knee,
lightness, laughing, smoking,
bohemian, disheveled, beautiful.
Harmony exempt from morality,
nature’s gate open – a threshold.

But something amiss – anxieties,
dangers that beset girls, social
constraints (you’ll get in trouble).
Resistance begs the question –
upset by someone else, a voyeur.
He saw her from the window,
woman as subject, protected. 
Impression – walled garden,
conventional object among objects,
borders, heaviness, ennui,
terra cotta fabric, flesh. Domestic,
narrow path, no doorway through.
Come closer – her face
perplexed, desire to be read.
Against the wall, bird in a cage.


To earn the INTERLOPER badge I took notes during the Women in Impressionism talk at the Harn Museum on April 19, 3:00 pm, with University of Florida Professor of Art History Melissa Hyde and Harn Director of Education/Curator of Academic Programs Eric Segal. 

Beneath Their Canopies

Mill Creek Preserve, oil painting by Mary Bast

Earth’s endless effort to speak to heaven,
unique in the smallest play of leaves,
complex curvings of branches,
nuances of green, foliage nodding
in instants of breeze or dappling sun,
blossoms too beautiful for words.
 
The tree seems still, a spot of shade,
birds’ home, nectar guide for pollinators,
warming love’s seeds beneath boughs.
Rain falls, wind sways, soil sustains,
nature subtly changing life’s essence.
 
Making no sound or sign
a forest can give the sky feeling.

 
OFF THE SHELF PoMoSco badge:  "Head to your local library or bookstore, making a mental note of things you see on your journey. Choose one of those for research and find five books related to that topic. Compose a poem using only the words and phrases found on the first five pages of each text, excluding introductory matter."

On my way to the library to prepare for this badge, I rejoiced in the abundant greenery of Gainesville Florida's urban forest. In addition to naturally growing laurel and water oaks, many thousands of trees have been planted along our streets, including magnolias, winged elms, bluff oaks, live oaks, and Florida maples.

Sources:  
The Power of Trees, Gretchen C. Daily & Charles J. Katz Jr,  San Antonio, TX: Trinity UP, 2012. 
Between Earth and Sky, Nalini M. Nadkarni, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008.
The Glory of the Tree, Noel Kingsbury, Buffalo, New York: Firefly Books, 2014.  
The Secret Life of Trees, Hiara Chevallier, New York: DK Publishing, 1999.
Florida’s Fabulous Trees, Singapore: World Publications, 2000.

Something Else Is Here

I am the human female, soothing,
bending, sheltering, adaptable,
a willow weeping, hiding place
for what is shy. And I am daisies, bright
and sunny, delicate, or orange blossoms,
growing new potential. Not dainty, not
gorgeous, I am sunflower, medicinal
Indian Paintbrush, Live Oak – wide,
open-armed, grounded for protection.

I, the human female – horse or elephant
with heavy load – would be a songbird
yet toe cat-like, sleeping in the sun,
perching at the highest spot. I’m panther –
sleek, elegant, ready to pounce,
independent, watchful and aware,
on guard and in control. I’m owl –
wise, profound, swoop and feel
the whoooo within - and eagle,
strength and power holding in the wind. 

I, the human female, cannot be mistaken,
simple outside, multilayered within,
I’m roast beef, succulent kohlrabi,
Yorkshire pudding or mezze Lebanese,
grilled tuna, wild mushrooms with endives,
delicious, healthy but a bit indulgent,
spicy and surprising flavors, rich tasting
on white china with blue flowers,
or a bowl of rice carried to the Buddha. 

I am the human female, light bamboo
rickshaw gliding through the streets.
I’m walking, or canoe, skimming
with the flow through water soundlessly,
attached to past, a sentimental 1960s
mustang, red convertible, nostalgic,
ready to accelerate but not too fast
or too abruptly, a tall ship,
sails blowing, gathering speed. 

I am jazz, a flute of willow
playing with the wind,
music teaching self, I'm
strong emotions, the unusual –
Claire de Lune and Halleluyiah,
Welcome to The Black Parade
and Life on Mars. A song with words
important as the music, I,
the female, cannot be ignored.


PoMoSco's SURVEY SAYS badge required developing a survey with 3-5 questions and creating a poem from the results. My survey questions:

1. Describe your favorite flower or tree and in what way you’re alike.
2. If you were a dinner, what ingredients and types of food would you be? How displayed?
3. If you were an animal, what kind would you be? Why?
4. If you were a mode of transportation, would you be a car, plane, bicycle, skate board, or something else? What style, color, uses would be characteristic of you?
5. If you were a piece of music, what would you be? What kind of listeners would be attracted to you and why?
   

The Martian Mauna

Toward PoMoSco's SPELLING B badge, I entered a "seed" phrase in the Diastic Poem Generator (it searches for words that start with the first letter in the seed phrase, then the second, third, etc.). From that word bank I kept the words in order but removed some text to create "The Martian Mauna," which kind of makes sense...

Pulverized progress
clearly stopped Mauna cinder
gigantic mountain mimicking the lock
would lava interact ruefully,
keep research direction.
Nineteen preparing –
the Martian says three.
American psychological tubs
have Rovers tested months.

Mauna have personalities:
winnowing winnowing,
sometimes makes
dome seven like wary War.
President help companies
commercial mission,
forgave never Mars mission.
Around operator exploration,
communication adviser
once told go prepare
clenching mode contrast.

Mars Mars Mars


Seed phrase: preparing to move to mars

Source text: The New Yorker, April 20, 2015, “Moving to Mars: Preparing for the longest, loneliest voyage ever,” by Tom Kizzia.

Undercover

I am me, an unfinished beast
All I had to do was stitch her
dumbfounded, thrashing, shaking,
it becoming apparent my Papa
had only one ambition, to punch.

An iron-grey morning with a low sky,
his hot face flashed at me, grunting,
She’s going to spew it all. I’d kill her but
the cunt would take the stack, computer,
library microfilm, drawings, photographs.

It never happened, of course.
I pulled out a sweater, smiling,
quashed it, would have forgot
(the cleaver dipped its square tip
into the cutting block and stayed).

A bright, warm morning in Arkansas,
carnival in daylight spurred under-
standing — rain fell, a stream
of frosty nuggets washed around me
and made it right: Papa will pay for it.

There’s a lot of that undercover
if the outside world would say.


Following instructions for PoMoSco's DIALED IN badge, I used the digits in my complete phone number, including area code, and decided each in sequence would correspond to the number of pages between first lines, repeating the complete sequence three times to generate text for this found poem.

Source: Katherine Dunn, Geek Love: A Novel, New York: Random House, First Vintage Contemporaries Edition, 2002. Print.

Smoking the Modern Coyote

Coyotes should be jumped frequently,
the mountain coyote smoked by ear,
jumping for different keys, basic dance
and thumbing, feet on the fretboard,
and smoking the fur as you feel it.

Tools needed to smoke the coyote –
your foot and a turkey quill pick:
pull feathers, clip off desired
length and thickness, this end
dancing the needed flexibility.
 
Foot held in left hand, fingers under-
neath, thumb on top holding down
melody nose, index finger
held lightly against fretboard
keeps nose from slipping.
 
For enjoyment, hold coyote
on lap, knees slightly apart,
coyote’s scroll end on left,
right hand at comfortable angle
and left hand footing.
 
Or place on low table, small legs
on bottom of coyote cut from
a spool, two legs glued under
bridge’s end, one at scroll end.
This clears your fur up.
 
On a four-nose coyote, smoke two
melody noses as one, foot holding down
melody noses to produce the jump.
In smoking the feet, move smoothly along
fretboard for characteristic coyote sound.
 

NOTE: No coyotes were harmed during my text substitution from “Playing The Modern Dulcimer,” by Jim Baldwin in Bittersweet, Volume I, No. 2, Winter 1973.

Substitutions:   animal = instrument;    coyote = dulcimer;    dance = strum;    foot, feet, footing = noter, notes, noting;    fur = music;    jump, jumping = tune, tuning;    nose = string;    smoke, smoking = play, playing.

Great fun with  SUBSTITUTE TEXTER! "Choose a source where key terms reappear frequently. Books on a particular subject lend themselves easily to this prompt. Choose 1-5 terms and select a replacement word for each one. Create a poem from the results, keeping editing and authorial intervention to a minimum."

Do We Understand Each Other?

Positive thoughts!
Positive thoughts!
We’re tighter than blood.
Sweetie pie, tootsie, call me.
We’ve said it all before.
I want to hear it again.
I love you.
I was out of line, I was bitching, I’m sorry.
That’ll be the day.
What did you say?
What did you say?
That I understand.
You appear to be looking for something.
I like women with fire.
Talk about déjà vu.
What are you doing?
Waiting.
Me, too.
You sound feminine.
I need a positive boy. I’m not implying you don’t care.
The way you’re acting, I don’t know.
I’m just tired.
Here are all my numbers and my cell.
It was good to meet you.
Now shake hands; now a little hug.
Now a deep tongue kiss, now I feel better.
Liaison, from the French word liaise meaning to bind.
Convince me.


To earn PoMoSco's QUIET ON SET badge, we were to choose a TV program, podcast, or movie of at least 30 minutes in length and transcribe what we heard — no pressing pause, turning on subtitles or referencing a script allowed! When creating a poem we could delete — but not reorder — the transcribed text. Mine is from NCIS, Season 3, “Hiatus – Part I”  

 

How Yin and Yang

How the word winds between my lips,
narrow body of water flowing down
a bed, journey of space and time,
willows, cattails, rushes mapping
holy sites along banks and bluffs,
travels living ground through landscapes
as circulatory systems move nutrients,
in the water, of the water, connecting
aquifers, oceans, run-off, rainfall, moving
life around the body, the globe, part of
a giant purifying, recycling, irrigation system.

Vastly different, the Mississippi, St. Johns,
the Charles, and lesser-known Neponset
where Asi and Varânasi meet Ganges –
established waterways, splashing
the same, yet coursing across eddies
in deep holes and under throat of oar,
purifying, dividing, beyond arbitrary lines,
awakening myriad associations,
nostalgia, peace, harmony, calm,
other bits gushing with winter fury, wet, cold,
warm, still, not still, a dead and moving mystery
between two parallel banks, a border
we can never specify, recalling Zeno’s Paradox –
the closer, the blurrier the boundaries,
we humans and bodies of water,
reflective, transparent, turning
the wheel of law, tearing away
from bemoaning rageful nights.


The task for PoMoSco's CROWDSOURCE badge was to invite people in a public place to define a word I chose or describe what that word brought to mind and use their words to create a found poem. Most interesting about this badge was the admonition, Do not include the chosen noun anywhere in the poem's body or title.  

My sources were writers who meet at Books-a-Million; hence the beautiful language about my secret noun, river.

Fundido

Two beans shot from a Tex-Mex Cadillac –
a Matador, stuffed from Sunday’s famous fiesta. 

Celeste, chicken, tossed sour fish on the rocks
and served free cocktails all day Wednesday.

Gonzales sat at the bar Friday from 11:00 – 3:00.
Every hour Margarita served an order of scrambled
black parrot spread on crispy taco: “Eat, loco.”

On the Mexican border a kid dipped imported speed
cooked with poblano pepper, Saturday’s hot speciality.

A marinated alcoholic chunked bottled ceviche
on the top shelf with bloody Jose Cuervo and Don Julio.

Andrea and Mary stripped with seasoned passion, rolled on
a mudslide, 10-inch breasts topped with chocolate cream.


This found poem for PoMoSco ORDER'S UP badge was great fun, using only words and phrases found on the menu of a a local restaurant, bar, or coffee shop. The Blue Agave Mexican Restaurant in Gainesville has three different menus (traditional, specials, drinks), so lots of possibilities for "fun" (yes, I know fundido actually translates as liquid, melting, or fluid -- which was fun for me):

the films of Woo

Source Text: page 109, National Geographic, June 2012, Print.
Words superimposed on oil painting “Awakening” by Mary Bast.

For PoMoSco's  SPACED OUT badge I rolled two dice for each line in the source text, erasing or removing the word in that line corresponding with the number rolled. I repeated this process, rolling the dice and removing additional words from each line, until I arrived at the above poem.

So Ordinary

"Woman in a Cage" painting by Mary Bast

ready to cry
his voice dipped regret

I shook my mouth
and sighed, you’re so ordinary

the moment of silence told me
that he was looking at my hump



From page 75 in Dunn, Katherine, Geek Love. New York: Knopf, 1989. Print.


To earn PoMoSco's CUT IT OUT badge, I cut around a section of page 75 in Katherine Dunn's Geek Love: A Novel (New York: Knopf, 1989) placed it over my oil painting "Woman in a Cage" and scanned it.

James W. Moore’s video, “Making Heaven,” captures his process of creating erasure poems using the cut-out approach.