Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
Starting January 1, 2013, this is 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, and from my second attempt, here are 1660 and 1661.
Boy in the bay, stay
and understand:
letters only attend
the coming of a sail.
Midway, we could see
places very pleasant;
the further we went,
the more we lost sight.
At cards, I come to see
my fruitless precaution,
getting without book
when I can get the book.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 12 May 1660.
Homage to Novica Tadić
A great hen, very angry, began
to pull down the dove and the lark,
a pretty dish.
The mouth dropped thirty guns
in a high debate with the sea.
It blew hard. The great fowl’s
mother was put to bed.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 11 May 1660.
This morning, a whore; this afternoon, music.
I was sick in the evening.
At night, while my lord was at supper, I went
to bed, to bed, to bed.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 10 May 1660.
A letter from the general:
my duty is to kill; my power, to write;
my mission, to proclaim with great praise.
Under the story of the king is the king.
He calls me a very knowing man.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 9 May 1660.
After dinner come several lush lutes.
While we were at play, my wife went to hunt,
and brought her bow here
to the hole of a fleet rat
at the bottom of a bed.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 8 May 1660.
A bottle in a ship in a boat:
what arms and flags?
Silk clothes, a rich
noise of fiddlers.
What will be the entertainment?
Jurates of the town
and the vice-admiral.
Where to drink?
In the lost ship,
in bed in my cabin,
where I gave the bottle
a merry good night.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 7 May 1660.
At sermon, I doze.
I remember a large man of small mien
who told me my convulsions gave
great contentment to the Lord.
I look over my accounts
and find a sea in my purse.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 6 May 1660.
A quaint command:
think of kindness, thank for kindness.
After supper, good music and bed.
Strew the streets with herbs for joy of going.
Never pray for happiness as long as the sun
and moon endure.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 5 May 1660.
War is a roar, a Vive le Roi
from one to another possessed servant
with the king’s lips.
The speakers suffer nothing more
than to be loyal, dutiful, faithful
and obedient ninepins.
No place to belong to,
every man is clerk of the signet.
Minister and army tell me
that pain is a present.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 4 May 1660.
The land troubles me,
and I am against the sea.
I cry out at the sight of a ship,
and hear bullets go hissing overhead
in a transport of joy.
I perceive unknown letters
in familiar words.
Strange things please me.
I put great confidence in the thoughts
of a thick-skulled fool.
Ordinary business must be
not served but feared.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 3 May 1660.