Activity

Erasure Poetry

How To Do It

• You may want to do this separately using the same story and then share the poem you created or do it collaboratively.
• Select a short prose text from a novel, newspaper, magazines (here is a possible source: http://100wordstory.org/).
• Cross out the words you do not want to keep and keep only the words that you like.
• Arrange and rearrange the words you kept to create a new poem.
• Read aloud with emotions the new poem created.

Questions

1. Compare the original story and the poem version. Do they evoke similar responses in you? Was there anything lost or gained after eliminating some of the words?
2. Do you prefer to read prose or poetry? Why?
3. How about writing, do you prefer to write prose or poetry? Why?
4. What is your favorite poetry form? (For example, free verse, rhyming poems, haiku, limerick, sonnet.)
5. Try to reverse the process: Use words in a short poem/song to create a prose. Was this easier or more difficult to do? Why?