I have completed my erasure of The Yellow Book – An Illustrated Quarterly, Volume 1 April 1894. This was the first edition of the literary journal that ran for 3 years and was edited by Henry Harland. I have had this original text for around 50 years though I was able to use an online copy for the erasure process.

I haven’t attempted to compile an entirely new narrative across all the texts, nor to fashion lengthy narratives within texts; indeed, my approach was to find at least one erasure from each written text, including poems, and to tackle some of the illustrations, choosing three for this. New meanings are discrete, and some present contemporary reflections; others not. There is no technical flamboyance because I wasn’t looking to create this and do not have the skills for doing so!

It is available to read and/or download here:

The Yell

I wanted you sitting next to me
driving home with the top down
on a balmy, August early evening,
warmed also by the night’s jazz –

that one about survival and surrender
with a trumpeter’s lyrical shift to the
squeal of how a struggle for freedom
is spiritual, without our believing in it.

From W H Mallock’s novel A Human Document again, the one from which Tom Phillips created his A Humument. Undertaken as a submission, but it wasn’t used so posting here.

Very pleased that three of my found prose poems have also found a place here at Anthropocene – with thanks to Charlie Baylis.

I have enjoyed reading the other writers here and am delighted to be included in this mix: the site is simply but potently dedicated to poetry.

Pleased to be here. Thank you Dennis Haritou.

To get back to the
half a tablet,

however manmade,
you were its personality.

The truth was
a warning

and it really was a city:
cloth and groovy and heaven

and notwithstanding fun
please be advised –

can you hear
god’s tears?

The most courteous recital
and a farmer explained

there is no badly manufactured
love

and everything
was alright

with a thruway closed
for breakfast in bed.

Just their ideas,
they were

and a parking lot
full of personality and dress.

But kids
you young people

and today’s real poison.
All you need is.