(an erasure poem written by deleting most of the words in the article, “The Magnetic Nature of Disk Accretion onto Black Holes,” written by Jon Miller, John Raymond, Andy Fabian, Danny Steeghs, Jeroen Homan, Chris Reynolds, Michiel van der Klis and Rudy Wijnands in Nature, Volume 44, 22 June 2006. The words in this poem were taken from their article in this exact order. No words not found in the article were were added.)
Here we report that it is common to decompose,
strength taken from our figures.
This is the nature of wind.
We are scattering and scattering,
a luminous dilution.
Where is our value?
In our loss—
luminous instability.
O the wind to infinity,
the wind remarkably driven,
the wind that is difficult.
The wind to infinity,
clear wind, rare and crucial,
the wind, driving wind,
ubiquitous, illuminated,
accelerating wind.
What an intriguing poem! I especially enjoyed that you created it by deleting words from an original article.
thanks! It was a fun assignment from my friend Debbi, who brought a bunch of science magazines. I really enjoyed it, seeing what emerged. and yes, the original language was great! I didn’t understand a word of what they were saying, though 🙂
I used to do these with students in high school creative writing. One of my favorite exercises, and one of their favorites too. The flow the writer’s mind gets into just choosing the words, not having to conjure them from thin(k) air.
lucky students! I wish I had been one of them back then, though being your partner in poetry now is even better 🙂