Words Belong to All of Us

As a poet I am always looking for a new way to explore text and play with words. A new project for me is creating erasure poetry from magazines. This project came from two origins; 1. That I was lacking inspiration in writing organically and 2. I have a a lot of old magazines laying around. Come along for my process of creating a poem from previously written text.

For years I have been collecting magazines and clippings to create collages. I find making collages a pleasant artistic medium that can easily be done while listening to a podcast or binging a favorite TV show and makes minimal mess in my living room. My boxes of cut out words, landscapes, objects, textures, and pictures of models or celebrities were becoming overwhelming. To which I stated I cannot cut anything new unless I use it immediately.

Then one day when flipping through a fashion magazine I paused on an ad that caught my eye. Here was simple text on white background, just a few lines, every word carefully chosen by the ad team. I saw a poem rise out of the lines, words calling to me. So finding the darkest, black marker on my art cart I erased the words I did not want. Thinking which I could eliminate to make a new phrase. Leaving behind a skeleton. In doing so I took these words that were meant to tempt me into buying home furnishings and turned them into a statement on sharing the Earth, our communal home.

But I found that the arrangement still did not work, that it had an anti-climatic ending. So taking my scissors I cut the phrases apart and changed the order again. Coming to the final version of the poem below:

This belongs to all of us.

There's room for everyone,

for your home,

discover how you live.

I wanted the poem to make people question how they use the Earth and what they bring to it with their life. I also love the line "there's room for everyone" which seems more poignant today than ever as we still struggle to house and feed everyone. As we continue to rage wars over resources trying to own and control them instead of sharing with everyone. The Earth is big enough for us all and if we use our resources properly we can all live comfortably.

It was now a completed poem but there was more to be done. I dug through my boxes of clipped images to find those that fit the words and feeling of the poem. Creating a backdrop for them to rest on adding the flesh back to the scant 17 word poem. With images of beautiful landscapes, growth and decay, and the resilience of the Earth. I hope to inspire people to take care of our communal home; it is the only one we have.

Just like the Earth, we share our words, our language that tells our stories. So find words wherever you can to share your hopes, dreams, fears and thoughts. Use the text all around you from magazines, newspapers, books to create the lines you envision. Erase them, cut them, and rearrange them, to make the statement in your mind. They are the tools of your art. These words belong to all of us.