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, 1661, and 1662.
White-hot and a black burn:
mind and face.
I look for direction,
see money and a petticoat.
I have taken up with that dog,
that plenipotentiary death.
What a great profit I made.
How I cheated.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 8 March 1659/60.
Ash overtook me, all joy
only a seed on the wind.
I went to the alley and bought a cat
and a good piece of cheese, I wonder why.
As if it is better to be here
than anywhere else.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 7 March 1659/60.
After talking about going to sea,
after drinking with a butcher and a violin,
after bacon, capons and fritters,
after singing and drinking,
after a dance or two with my lord,
soberly and without fear
I lay awake.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 6 March 1659/60.
Ill with pleasure ill took,
ill at the Salutation Tavern,
I drank till overcome,
and so see a unicorn
of the king’s hunt
hung in church
again.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 5 March 1659/60.
Before Orpheus
that moth
and the mess he caused
a citizen of pretense
to my mother and talk
I was born.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 4 March 1659/60.
The Lord, a lamb;
the sun, nothing—
a sheep’s head
with a war bark,
a public hatch,
sad money,
or a hand with
a high fever.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 3 March 1659/60.
Lo, the trumpeters give a sound
of the rump this morning,
a wind to the leg where a carp
is put into good posture.
My art is talk—
and after talk, the bed.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 2 March 1659/60.
Thinking out of the box,
my mind left.
Little to do but school a school in being,
a man buried in being.
Brain or pot? Water or wine?
Other things make a kind bed.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 1 March 1659/60.
How at sea he is, that monk!
Join with him and dine on herring,
chant and turn out to row
in a brave cup.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 29 February 1659/60.
Red herrings to breakfast:
boot-heel hole as big as a horse
through the forest, one path
as if through a red regiment.
Old Harry went out to buy a hat
and met the Greyhound,
where I found him vexed
about breaking the Lord’s lock.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 28 February 1659/60.