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Via Negativa

Via Negativa

Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.

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Category: Pepys Diary erasure project

Starting January 1, 2013 and reaching the end of the diary on May 31, 2022, this was a daily exercise in erasure poetry based on the 17th-century Diary of Samuel Pepys. Why this work? Its language is admirably concrete, with recurring words and turns of phrase shaped by the exigencies of Pepys’ original shorthand. In thought and content it stands at the beginning of the modern era: the first truly confessional piece of literature by a man equally fascinated by religion and science, and whose curiosity encompassed everything from music-making and theater to mathematics, accounting, politics, fashion, and carnal pleasures. And last but not least, the 1899 Wheatley edition is available online in a website that is really a model for how to present literature on the web. It was my desire to read it day by day that led to this project, which I view not as erasure but as discovery—a kind of deep (mis)reading. Pepys was a sexual predator and an architect of British colonialism who personally profited off the slave trade, so any less than an engaged, critical reading of the diary, in this day and age, would be irresponsible. From a secret diary, these are the secret poems hidden even from the author himself.

I began compiling the erasures into free ebooks in 2017. Here are 1664, 1665, 1666, 1667, 1668 and 1669.

Posted on January 5, 2013January 9, 2013 by Dave Bonta

Frost Soldiers

Erasure of Samuel Pepys

[Frost soldiers receive dark company: that dead lady, Money.
They all called home and found me.]


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 3 January 1659/60

Posted on January 3, 2013January 9, 2013 by Dave Bonta

In the Sack

erasure of a page from Samuel Pepys' diary

[In the sack, I speak with the Lord,
nothing that my head would house for free;
fill the old thinking cup with cribbage.
My singing proves a very bad wind.]


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 2 January 1659/60 (Yes, this is going to be a series, I think)

Posted on January 1, 2013November 1, 2015 by Dave Bonta

The River

Erasure poem derived from the Diary of Samuel Pepys.

[Blessed pain, I lived in Axe Yard
disturbed by the river, an army without desires,
handsome but poor;
worn chapel of time, made this day.]


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 1 January 1659/60

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How can we live without the unknown before us?   —Rene Char

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About

Via Negativa is a unique experiment in daily, poetic conversation with the living and the dead. Dave Bonta founded the site in 2003 and Luisa A. Igloria joined in 2010. Guest authors contribute as well. Dave writes daily erasure poems to discover the poetry hidden in the Diary of Samuel Pepys. Luisa has been writing and posting a poem a day since November 2010, often in response to Dave’s entries at The Morning Porch. Collections of poems first published at Via Negativa include Luisa’s The Buddha Wonders if She is Having a Mid-Life Crisis and Ode to the Heart Smaller than a Pencil Eraser, and Dave’s Ice Mountain and Breakdown: Banjo Poems. Read more…

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