Pepys Diary erasure project – Page 408

Category: Pepys Diary erasure project

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 and 1661.

February 23, 2013 by Dave Bonta

Mr. P.’s blues

A rose told my thoughts
and I took to drink,
dined with my troubles—
the money horse,
the rose that brought
a slow hell home.

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 23 February 1659/60.

February 23, 2013 by Dave Bonta

Song of My Beard

I sang a song to my beard,
overgrown powder
of my neck and altered head,
brown thing of thorn, bridge
to a brave day abominably bare.

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 22 February 1659/60.

February 21, 2013 by Dave Bonta

Liberators

Chance came, Charles came
carried in a basket.
They command the sea to free the water
and the prison to be set at liberty,
and a brave eight voices made words:
domine salvum fac something
gavel glory rang spong!
And Christ free the rest.

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 21 February 1659/60.

February 20, 2013December 23, 2014 by Dave Bonta

Digger

West wind on the marsh.
A general in the wars
out getting vines to pot.

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 20 February 1659/60.

February 20, 2013February 21, 2013 by Dave Bonta

Gunfire

I drink a draft of desire.
A gun gives widowhood
and the discourse of revenge:
to meet and dissolve, to issue hurt.
I was glad to hear a sermon
too eloquent for a pulpit—
the talking rain.

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 19 February 1659/60.

February 19, 2013 by Dave Bonta

Music of the spheres

[I book a passage in
a woman’s belly to
the moon. We hear
music through the ceiling,
stories of comedies,
the names of the hanged.]

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 18 February 1659/60 (with the censored passage added back in).

February 17, 2013February 20, 2013 by Dave Bonta

Extreme position

[My foot came to see my hand
as an impertinent echo,
a gone member, thinking how to stand—
a thing on whom no being went.]

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 17 February 1659/60.

February 16, 2013February 20, 2013 by Dave Bonta

Burden

[In the morning at my lute
the carrier will carry to the carrier
oranges and two barrels of sun
sake and sack, lamb and veal
a pocket to carry in his pocket
after supper at my flute]

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 16 February 1659/60.

February 15, 2013 by Dave Bonta

Funeral instructions

[Call up a merry rump
to carry to the grave.

Dine below the buttery
church of money.

Dine at a secluded grave
on the horse of the house.]

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 15 February 1659/60.

February 15, 2013 by Dave Bonta

Fool’s progress

[In whose hall on the where hill with whom
I went
but my lute changed me — ha!
I shall be chosen to sit in Parliament
like a fool.]

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 14 February 1659/60.

About

Via Negativa is a unique experiment in daily, poetic conversation with the living and the dead. Dave Bonta founded the site in 2003 and Luisa A. Igloria joined in 2010. Guest authors contribute as well. Dave writes daily erasure poems to discover the poetry hidden in the Diary of Samuel Pepys. Luisa has been writing and posting a poem a day since November 2010, often in response to Dave’s entries at The Morning Porch. Collections of poems first published at Via Negativa include Luisa’s The Buddha Wonders if She is Having a Mid-Life Crisis and Ode to the Heart Smaller than a Pencil Eraser, and Dave’s Ice Mountain and Breakdown: Banjo Poems. Read more…