Junk Mail Redux
Before I tell you what we’re going to do, I want you to find some unassuming printed matter somewhere in your house. A menu from the grand reopening of your neighborhood Chinese food restaurant? The California Voter Guide? The New Yorker you haven’t gotten to yet? The free weekly if your city still has one? It should be something you don’t mind destroying.
While you’re up, grab a sharpie, or other marker of choice.
This is a writing exercise that takes the form of erasure. Using your sharpie, you’ll cross out everything on the page except the words that compose your piece.
Here’s one of ours from last week, extracted from the Letters to the Editor page:
Death
was an economic disaster
a rag and bone dealer
paper maker
shapeshifting
chameleon
the work
avant-garde
like a bee