I was really stuck on what to do this week without replicating prior poetic projects I’ve done in different contexts (book manipulation, book making, etc.), but then it came to me… literally. In the mail.

My materials are self-evident: West Elm catalog, and a black sharpie. The process of redaction/erasure (generally referred to as the latter in poetic circles), helps a new thing emerge. The method is simple: erase or remove (or black out, in this case) some words and leave others. The new words form a new “poem.” While I’m not certain what I’ve composed is poem, it certainly has its moments. There’s a lexicon here that became for me oddly meta with regard to this class. Words I could not help but leave open to the air: design, section, collect, now, print, lines, hand-crafted, hand, made, thing, intentions, desk… and a several beautiful color names.

It also became evident to me the labor involved with constructing these catalogs… the diagrammatic choices as much as developing the lexicon. The pages have to feel consistent. It’s as though the makers agreed upon a set of words from which to choose to describe these mid-century-inspired furniture pieces and textiles, the way I’ve chosen those words to redact. This is certainly a work that is as much designed as it is written.

Here are a few of my favorite moments: