Always the Procreant Urge of the World

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First prize winner of the 2nd Annual Geist Erasure Poetry Contest.

I.
I hear firemen singing,
  twenty-five bathers saying,
    We do whatever we feel.
Fawns answer, Like this:
     rollick;
                         now, in the heart.

II.
I am alive—
but not too much—
unchanging, and man,
no one has anything,
and no one has to know
the deal; there are no deals.

III.
I smell
       lime,
iron,
   amber—
        the nteenth odor is excited flesh,
the erection of sweat
—America,
          season
    three,
time.

IV.
I ugh & wane & eye
forever (I’m hiking)
and Christ,
I’m giving in.

Erasure poetry begins with removing letters and words from an existing text in order to create a new stand-alone piece that provides new meaning to the original passage. For the 2nd Annual Geist Erasure Poetry Contest, we posted an excerpt from the novel How Should a Person Be? by acclaimed Canadian author Sheila Heti.

The 3rd Erasure Poetry Contest is now underway. Enter today!