copyright 2017, Robyn Hood Black

Happy Poetry Friday!

I'm feeling the lazy days of summer.  How about you?
One of the ways I keep myself growing and moving through the summer is to participate in the Summer Poetry Swap.  Last week I received my first poem from Robyn Hood Black.  Robyn is one of the most creative poets I have ever met.  I think one of the reasons I enjoy knowing Robyn is because she loves writing haiku even more than I do.

Her poem:

Light-givers,
like moon
ripples of molten silver,
appear 
to romancers
of the pen
in words.

(I love the pearl button Robyn used to illustrate the moon.)
Do you like the words Light-givers and romancers?

When I went to Poets Camp at Western Washington University last fall, Robyn presented a workshop for us on erasure poems.  She provided all the materials so we each could make our own poem.
To make an erasure poem, you start with a sheet of text.  It could be a page from an old paperback novel, or a magazine.  

Read the page several times to see if any words jump out to you.  Then carefully see if you can select a few words from the page to make a poem.

Next erase, mark out, blackout, or paint out all the other words. (Robyn had us cut little sticky tabs to cover our chosen words and then we used rubber stamp, or a sponge and ink pad to cover up all the other words.

What you are left with is your erasure poem, because you have erased everything but the words of your poem.

As you can see from Robyn's poem, she adds glitter and embellishments to make a piece of art from her poem.  You can find more of Robyn's art at her Etsy shop here. 

Can you try making an erasure poem today?  You can find out more about erasure or blackout poems here. Have fun playing with words and text.

You can find more poetry at the Poetry Friday Roundup, hosted by Carol Varsalona on her blog Beyond Literacy here. 

Have a great weekend.