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Dick Erasures
Laura Wetherington - Her first book, A Map Predetermined and Chance (Fence 2011), was chosen by C.S. Giscombe for the National Poetry Series. She is co-founder and co-editor of textsound.org and has work in or forthcoming from Fence, Otoliths, Levure Litteraire, Eleven Eleven, Verse, Just Magazine, Little Red Leaves, and Oxford Magazine. She teaches creative writing at Sierra Nevada College in Incline Village, Nevada.
Many thanks to California College of the Art's Eleven Eleven Journal, where 379 (A Grass of simple Bees), 1771 (here ripeness), 475 (Myself unpretending), and 1320 (before you walked out) first appeared. The poems in this manuscript come from the Franklin edition of Emily Dickinson's poems, except for 164 (Mama never forgets her looks), 166 (this afternoon He was afraid), 391 (A Visitor influences), and 229 (blame affronts my only art), which are from the three volume Johnson edition.
Many thanks to California College of the Art's Eleven Eleven Journal, where 379 (A Grass of simple Bees), 1771 (here ripeness), 475 (Myself unpretending), and 1320 (before you walked out) first appeared. The poems in this manuscript come from the Franklin edition of Emily Dickinson's poems, except for 164 (Mama never forgets her looks), 166 (this afternoon He was afraid), 391 (A Visitor influences), and 229 (blame affronts my only art), which are from the three volume Johnson edition.
28 pages, ebook
First published November 1, 2011
3 people want to read
About the author
Laura Wetherington
3 books8 followersLaura Wetherington‘s first book, A Map Predetermined and Chance (Fence Books 2011), was selected by C.S. Giscombe for the National Poetry Series. The Brooklyn Rail called the book “humble, folksy, romantic, tough, inventive, and not over-programmed.” She has two chapbooks: Dick Erasures (Red Ceilings Press 2011) and a collaboration with Jill Darling and Hannah Ensor, at the intersection of 3 (Dancing Girl Press 2014). Her work appears in the Minnesota Review, Drunken Boat, Otoliths, Verse, among others, and in two anthologies, The Sonnets: Translating and Rewriting Shakespeare (Nightboat Books 2013) and 60 Morning Talks (Ugly Duckling Presse 2014).
Wetherington co-founded and currently edits textsound.org. She currently teaches in Sierra Nevada College’s undergraduate English and low-residency MFA programs.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 24, 2022
A very novel and incendiary enterprise Laura Wetherington commits wholeheartedly to with gusto, in this brief and impactful exercise, from its somewhat shocking - certainly attention grabbing - title to the wonderful quote from Thoreau which begins the series of cento poems appropriating and repurposing for selective display brief and telling excerpts from the published writings of reclusive phenomenon Emily Dickinson (whose legend has been explored with renewed interest in recent media, including the spectacular biopic A Quiet Passion and the Apple TV+ series Dickinson):
”I find the most pleasure in reading a book in a manner least flattering to the author.”
- Henry David Thoreau
Like a cartoon character in hot water, upon meeting such an introduction to a work answering or commenting upon another’s of renown and general acceptance, one cannot help gulping and unbuttoning their collar, preparing for great irreverence and perhaps outright blasphemy, with much intrigue and great suspense. Shots fired, one interprets. Fightin’ words, but by whom and to what purpose?!
Could this also be a commentary on the savagery of critics themselves, the comical affront an indignant male audience of stuffy patriarchs had at Dickinson’s boldly feminine and profane philosophies and approaches? How they were astonishingly ignored and neglected by critics, and also rudely manhandled and simplified by various editors to whom they had been submitted. One reads on to find out…
Let us examine an instance of Wetherington’s meticulous craftsmanship and its transmutation from one form into another.
The first poem by Laura in the collection proceeds thusly.
A Grass of simple Bees
stir to pretty Breezes and hold everything
all night, make a common noticing
And even odors so lowly sleep
Or dwell in Days away, so little to wish
Those words, artfully reassembled to assume an entirely new meaning and idea, derive from Dickinson’s poem ‘The Grass’ below, which upon first scanning is unrecognizable from the above piece, yet on careful scrutiny one finds all of the words within the above work scattered throughout that below, before getting caught in a net and mounted in the new sequence.
The Grass The grass so little has to do, - A sphere of simple green, With only butterflies to brood, And bees to entertain, And stir all day to pretty tunes The breezes fetch along, And hold the sunshine in its lap And bow to everything; And thread the dews all night, like pearls, And make itself so fine, - A duchess were too common For such a noticing. And even when it dies, to pass In odors so divine, As lowly spices gone to sleep, Or amulets of pine. And then to dwell in sovereign barns, And dream the days away, - The grass so little has to do, I wish I were the hay!
I certainly can’t claim any qualification to speak authoritatively about Dickinson, her voluminous output of highly unique and challenging poetry written in obscurity and focused on some seriously subversive and righteous subject matter. (Wetherington can however, being a writing professor at a Nevada university! Also she founded and edits a journal - at text sound dot org - and published a book chosen for the National Poetry Series in 2011, “A Map Predetermined and Chance”.) Nor am I knowledgeable enough regarding poetry criticism or gender studies to appreciate entirely the eloquent nuanced commentary Wetherington makes boldly and provocatively on a number of pressing subjects. But this was still an exploration very worth taking along with her, even for the most oblivious laymen, who reports back to you there is much enjoyment and thought provoking to be had throughout the short chapbook collection. I can assure you it's worth the very modest effort required to traverse 28 sparsely populated but meaningfully infused pages.
Among many exquisite remixes, my personal favorite may have been 164:
Mama never forgets her looks
Just her little cunning
her fall.
The closing line is also transcendent and leaves a lasting impression.
(...If you dig this and are looking for another stunning cento collection from Red Ceiling Press’s extraordinary free eBook series, I highly recommend checking out “The Scavengers of London” by Tom Watt…)
”I find the most pleasure in reading a book in a manner least flattering to the author.”
- Henry David Thoreau
Like a cartoon character in hot water, upon meeting such an introduction to a work answering or commenting upon another’s of renown and general acceptance, one cannot help gulping and unbuttoning their collar, preparing for great irreverence and perhaps outright blasphemy, with much intrigue and great suspense. Shots fired, one interprets. Fightin’ words, but by whom and to what purpose?!
Could this also be a commentary on the savagery of critics themselves, the comical affront an indignant male audience of stuffy patriarchs had at Dickinson’s boldly feminine and profane philosophies and approaches? How they were astonishingly ignored and neglected by critics, and also rudely manhandled and simplified by various editors to whom they had been submitted. One reads on to find out…
Let us examine an instance of Wetherington’s meticulous craftsmanship and its transmutation from one form into another.
The first poem by Laura in the collection proceeds thusly.
A Grass of simple Bees
stir to pretty Breezes and hold everything
all night, make a common noticing
And even odors so lowly sleep
Or dwell in Days away, so little to wish
Those words, artfully reassembled to assume an entirely new meaning and idea, derive from Dickinson’s poem ‘The Grass’ below, which upon first scanning is unrecognizable from the above piece, yet on careful scrutiny one finds all of the words within the above work scattered throughout that below, before getting caught in a net and mounted in the new sequence.
The Grass The grass so little has to do, - A sphere of simple green, With only butterflies to brood, And bees to entertain, And stir all day to pretty tunes The breezes fetch along, And hold the sunshine in its lap And bow to everything; And thread the dews all night, like pearls, And make itself so fine, - A duchess were too common For such a noticing. And even when it dies, to pass In odors so divine, As lowly spices gone to sleep, Or amulets of pine. And then to dwell in sovereign barns, And dream the days away, - The grass so little has to do, I wish I were the hay!
I certainly can’t claim any qualification to speak authoritatively about Dickinson, her voluminous output of highly unique and challenging poetry written in obscurity and focused on some seriously subversive and righteous subject matter. (Wetherington can however, being a writing professor at a Nevada university! Also she founded and edits a journal - at text sound dot org - and published a book chosen for the National Poetry Series in 2011, “A Map Predetermined and Chance”.) Nor am I knowledgeable enough regarding poetry criticism or gender studies to appreciate entirely the eloquent nuanced commentary Wetherington makes boldly and provocatively on a number of pressing subjects. But this was still an exploration very worth taking along with her, even for the most oblivious laymen, who reports back to you there is much enjoyment and thought provoking to be had throughout the short chapbook collection. I can assure you it's worth the very modest effort required to traverse 28 sparsely populated but meaningfully infused pages.
Among many exquisite remixes, my personal favorite may have been 164:
Mama never forgets her looks
Just her little cunning
her fall.
The closing line is also transcendent and leaves a lasting impression.
(...If you dig this and are looking for another stunning cento collection from Red Ceiling Press’s extraordinary free eBook series, I highly recommend checking out “The Scavengers of London” by Tom Watt…)
April 18, 2013
These brief erasures of Emily Dickinson poems are beautifully evocative, surreal, and ambiguous. Like their sources, the subject matter tends toward nature and introspection. In one case, four different pieces are derived from the same source poem, not varying the style so much as focusing on different subjects. Wetherington also plays with logical twists and inversions, as in the line "a horse held the rein."
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews