More notes on the cull

When I stumbled upon the idea of writing erasure poems on my high school writing, I wasn’t too concerned about quality control. I figured, under the guise of National Poetry Month and my recent Material Purge 2015, this series would serve to close two unrelated challenges with ease. Eleven days into this project, however, I must say: squinting over high school notepads at 6am and composing brief retorts during breakfast hasn’t proven the best way to spend my waking hour. 

Content-wise, I expected The sulk crow cull to be a foolhardy endeavour, like getting blood from a stone, but I gave less attention to the aspect of writing and self-publishing work within a two-hour window. On most days I click “Publish” with a vague sense of dissatisfaction I would normally tend to over a few more drafts. But this is the challenge: not vindicating these early attempts at poetry, but shaping them into something useful, if merely sturdy.

Reliving my teenage years has been pretty insufferable but I’m doing what I can to poke fun, interrogate and minimize a lot of self-created baggage. Would it aid the reader to see these source materials I’m interacting with? Would their proper reproduction make my erasure revisits less of a one-way conversation? Probably, but I favour keeping my high school dramas off-screen, so to speak, and looming as though they belonged in reality, not just a sixteen year old's mind. Worries have no weight, off the shoulders. I think most of us can recall teenaged self-pity just as well without ink proof. 

With yesterday’s post I washed my hands of 1999, 2000 and 2001, save for one unfinished piece I’ll carry over into my focus on 2002 and 2003. Thanks to those of you who’ve shuddered or grinned alongside me so far. As April moves forward, it’s going to get a bit sunnier around here.