She, A Pale Form

Embracing the mystery of erasure poetry

Two books have been knocking around my bag this summer:

“10 Minute Crossword Puzzles— an official Mensa book”

-and-

“Murder She Wrote: A Palette for Murder”

Neon & I found the crossword book years ago in a little free library box back in Portland and have primarily worked the puzzles perched on barstools, playing with words together over leisurely brunches. They definitely take us longer than ten minutes but we’ll drink coffee ‘til the last box is filled, high five one another, then order breakfast.

Small pleasures!

The Murder She Wrote book was part of a thrift shop haul when I was feeling particularly raw and needed some literary refuge. Of all the heady books waiting (half-read) on my bookshelf to enlighten me about internal family systems and ceremonial magic etc etc etc, nothing serves in my time of need like a shitty paperback novel based on the best television series of all time. This book did not let me down.

But alas, it was a quick & cozy read. So, instead of returning the book to the thrift store that bore it, I thought I’d use it to play with words in another way: Erasure, or “blackout poetry”.

So when I’ve got some extra time and want my brain to unwind on a different kind of word-puzzle, I assume every page of this book is “solvable”. Pen in hand, I flip to the next page and see if I can figure out what poetry is hiding there.

I’ll read you Chapter One…

She, A Pale Form

A prompt for you…

Grab a book that’s calling for some poetic defacement and set yourself free with a little light word play!

Erasure is the perfect poetic constraint for the puzzle-solver (or the mystery-solver). All the words are there, you just have to figure out how they fit together.

Tips & tricks:

Though my pride insists on working crossword puzzles in ink, I usually work through my erasure by pencil first. I do an initial skim to look for evocative words or phrases that stand out, then dig in with a finer focus to find a through-line.

I also realized by page 10 of “She, A Pale Form” that cheap newsprint is especially thirsty paper and that I was going to drain every single pen in the house completely dry if I kept crossing out every line. So, permission granted to get creative with how you pull the poem off the page!

Creative play saves my ass daily. I mean, the world is loud, y’know?, and the odds feel stacked against liberation and joy. I consider creative practice a lifeline: to my intuition, to my authenticity and to my purpose. And I genuinely believe all of us can practice our way into this connection. So, if my weird and wonderful world of creative play inspires you, would you send this newsletter to a friend who could use it? I’d love to meet them. xoxoxo

[👻 Psst: Upload your responses to Image Word Mystery creative prompts HERE so I can share them!]