There is a reason erasure poetry is also called “blackout poetry.” Erasure poetry is not about starting from a blank page, but about taking a page or poem that is already created and blacking things out. What does not get erased becomes the new poem. It’s conceptual, it’s creative, and it leaves a visual statement. Students in this workshop will learn about erasure poetry through analyzing examples. Then, they will create their own erasure poem…and visual art in the process.
TEACHING ARTIST SESSION
Exploring Erasure Poetry (5-12)
Alex PoeticSoul Johnson
Alex “PoeticSoul” Johnson is the founder and leader of the spoken word organization Lyrically Inclined, and she can be seen performing with them monthly in Lafayette, Louisiana. As a teaching artist, PoeticSoul works to expose children in rural areas to literary arts. She organizes the Community Stage of The Festival of Words in Grand Coteau, Louisiana and is a committee member for the Word Crawl fundraiser at the Annual Festival of Words. Alex, who earned a B.S. in Business Administration – Marketing from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, has also worked as a teaching artist in the Lafayette Parish Juvenile Detention Home. There, she empowered incarcerated youth to create a spoken word poem, “Eyes of the Sun.” “Eyes of the Sun” was later turned into two murals thanks to the sponsorship of the 24-Hour Citizen Project. PoeticSoul has performed her poetry at numerous venues including the Nuyorican Café, Acadiana Center for the Arts, and Cité des Arts; for organizations like Englewood’s You Got Served, 100,00 Poets for Change, Unlikely Stories; and the Blood Jet Poetry Series. She presented at the 2016 Split this Rock Poetry festival in Washington, DC and was featured as a 2017 Tedx presenter. PoeticSoul was the recipient of the ABC Fund’s 2018 ICON Rising Star Award and the Acadiana Profile 2019 Trailblazer Award. Her poetry has been featured in The Southern View Magazine. Her first poetry book, Poisonous Thoughts, can be found on Amazon. Her album Scattered Thoughts can be found on iTunes, Google Play Store, Spotify, and Amazon.
