laws of radiation
Harpy Hybrid Review
My hopes continue my shared erasure poems excavated from works within the public domain will interest readers in the found material and encourage them to seek out the original works.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman is well known for her semi-autographical work “The Yellow Umbrella” (1892). The short story - based on her experience with postpartum depression - revealed from within my blackout erasure poem “laws of radiation”.
Writer, artist, humanist, novelist, lecturer, early sociologist and advocate for social reform, Charlotte Perkins Gilman is an inductee of the National Women’s Hall of Fame.
She was the grand-niece of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Isabella Beecher Hooker.
Learn more about Charlotte Perkins Gilman here.
Harpy Hybrid Review included “laws of radiation” as part of Issue 5: Lost and Found (June 2021) here.
Thank you, editors and thank you for reading.
Source and Process
“laws of radiation” is a blackout erasure from the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” ” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. (First published 1892, ‘The New England Magazine’ - p 647-56; Boston: Small, Maynard & Co.).
My process for found poems involves the discovery and repurpose of words and phrases connecting with my sense of word play. As a result, the phrase ‘laws of radiation’ emerged from text to title as the found poem “laws of radiation”.
The copyright status of “The Yellow Wallpaper” is the public domain USA here.
Pages 12, 13 and 18 (title) are sourced from the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” available at Wikisource here.
Hi Sheree, can you describe your process in making the physical part of your erasure poems?
Love CPG and love your erasure poem, “laws of radiation,” Sheree! I find this poetic form so fascinating, how it brings a whole new work of art from an existing one. Good work!