Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
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.
I put a hat on
for the flock.
They go so high
that others fall,
so high that they
deceive, and I am
so low that I am not
able to escape,
my troubled hopes
made even with
my money.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 27 April 1660.
Let the meeting of yes
and never, bear and bottle,
stone and noon
be merry with wine
and wholly underwater,
laughing at a bass.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 26 April 1660.
My character was the commander.
Me? A little man in the fleet afternoon
finishing the alphabet up with W.
How I err to be.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 25 April 1660.
I had an oyster busy as a rose,
a pleasant room bigger
than a broke-open safe:
a great large book.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 24 April 1660.
I had in my cabin
that dun cow, paradox:
that the sea was good at ninepins.
That we hear for our instruments—
locks singing to the blacksmith.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 23 April 1660.
A strange thing, how every day
I am private eye for a statue,
set up in exchange after I fell
to writing, to morrow, to bed.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 22 April 1660.
A boy is going to the king.
I enter his name in my book.
How many churches have
a barrel of pickled oysters?
Open the barber’s hands with
his own hands: a close business.
This letter is like a house—
a very well writ one.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 21 April 1660.
My window was infinite as a ring.
My head ached.
Sitting backwards, I heard a dove
speak with the day.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 20 April 1660.
A great burr did vex me in my hose.
A dove came on board whom
I do not know; it came to go.
I wrap myself up in a dry sheet.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 19 April 1660.
I stay, I cannot stay
in my own head.
I have made more light
than the Lord
and resolve to sit
and resolve to make way
and be undone.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 18 April 1660.