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

Cut

erasure of a page from Samuel Pepys' diary

I was cut of the stone
while I live: a festival.
I am where I am.

I bless the ships with men and guns
cut for the stone,
cut in kindness.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 26 March 1660.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Correspondent

erasure of a page from Samuel Pepys' diary

Letters came by ox and dove, good as oysters.
After dinner I wrote a great many letters.
After that, I slept, God forgive me!
After that, I walked, talking.
After that I sat.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 25 March 1660.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Fetish

erasure of a page from Samuel Pepys' diary

Carried in a black box,
my sugar woman
brought me perspective,
and I saw
people as guns—
and I was the best
that any had.
I got out of my chest
the orders to stop
all dangerous persons
going or coming.
How I slept
and was not sick
I know not.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 23 March 1659/60.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Devotional

erasure of a page from Samuel Pepys' diary

I ate the key to keep
the morning private,

took the Pope’s head and his silver hatband
to do him a courtesy.

I pray God to receive my ham.
I lay all night with my marrow bone.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 22 March 1659/60.