My writing class this past week seemed only moderately successful, however I believe we were all lethargic from the heat. I vow to do better next week.

I did read them the first poem from Harryette Mullen's S*PeRM**K*T, which, though out of print, is highly highly recommended. Louis Cabri included a Mullen poem in his "poetry pack" at his recent KSW Negotiating the Social Bond of Poetics seminar, which inspired me to pull S*PeRM**K*T off the ol' shelf and give it a re-read. 

We are all poet-consumers now.

After we examined Mullen and wrote our own supermarket poems, I introduced the concept of erasure, and suggested we work some erasure on the Mullen poem. This proved interesting & successful for half the class. 

In any case, here is the original poem:  

Lines assemble gutter and margin. Outside and in, they straighten a place. Organize a stand. Shelve space. Square footage. Align your list of listlessness. Pushing oddly evening aisle catches the tail of an eye. Displays the cherished share. Individually wrapped singles, frozen divorced compartments, six-pack windows express themselves while women wait in family ways, all bulging baskets, squirming young. More on line in-cites the eyes. Bold names label familiar type faces. Her hand scanning throwaway lines.


Here is my erased version:


Lines,                   they

straighten o stand, Shelve sp sq

foot. lig list list Push o even

sin froze

basket ming young    Moron linen

cites Bold faces. Her hand

lies