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.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Feckless

erasure of a page from Samuel Pepys' diary

A wind set my things
in better order, and I ached
for a serious purpose.
The rain coming
upon my bed, I went
and lay with the wind,
rocking till ten.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 13 April 1660.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

On Second Thought

erasure of a page from Samuel Pepys' diary

A man, a man, a man
came from London, from London, from London
to the arms of a captain, a captain, a captain…
and it comes now into my mind to observe that I have been a little too free to make mirth, he being a very sober and an upright man.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 11 April 1660.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Land Ho

erasure of a page from Samuel Pepys' diary

Having sailed all night,
we come in sight
of a fresh gale
and a good deal.

Great was the shout of guns,
the rattling of guns.
Smoke came,
the captains came.

I wrote to my wife,
drank wine to my wife.
It was in the morning.
We parted this evening.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 9 April 1660.