Mandala

At the office upon business extraordinary all the morning, then to my Lady Sandwich’s to dinner, whither my wife, who had been at the painter’s, came to me, and there dined, and there I left her, and to the Temple my brother and I to see Mrs. Turner, who begins to be better, and so back to my Lady’s, where much made of, and so home to my study till bed-time, and so to bed.

ordinary morning
the sand painter begins
to study time


Erasure haiku derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 18 December 1661.

3 Replies to “Mandala”

    1. Hi Lisa, I’m glad my erasures have prompted you to try your hand at it. The piece you link to is well crafted, though it gets a little too abstract toward the end for my taste. As a general rule (and not one I always follow myself), it’s a good idea to make the erasure poem as divergent from the subject of the source text as possible. I find it’s more challenging, and therefore more fun, to work that way. Thus if your interest is in writing religious-themed erasures, I’d suggest working not with the Bible but with some utterly secular work, or if you want to work with the Bible, try and end up with a text that is in some way contrary to or even subversive of the surface meaning of the passage you’re working with.

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