By J. R. Solonche
Although this is not the first book of redacted or blackout poetry, it may very well be the best, and it surely must be the only one devoted exclusively to using all the plays of William Shakespeare as sources. I say “plays” and not “poetry” or “works” because Shakespeare’s sonnets are the primary source texts of Nets, Jen Bervin’s 2003 collection of blackout poems from Ugly Duckling Presse. However, whereas Bervin is very selective about which sonnets to use, Cramer is much more ambitious as he draws upon all 37 plays, and does so twice, sourcing the first and last pages of each play. Here are but two of the 74:
The First Part of Henry the Fourth
[ End of Act 5 ]
That the pursuers took him. At my tent
The Douglas is, and I beseech your grace
I may dispose of him.
King With all my heart.
Prince Then, brother John of Lancaster, to you
This honorable bounty shall belong.
Go to the Douglas, and deliver him
Up to his pleasure, ransomless and free:
His valour shown upon our crests to-day
Hath taught us how to cherish such high deeds,
Even in the bosom of our adversaries.
John I thank your grace for this high courtesy,
Which I shall give away immediately.
King Then this remains, that we divide our power.
You, son John, and my cousin Westmoreland
Towards York shall bend you, with your dearest speed,
To meet Northumberland and the prelate Scroop,
Who, as we hear, are busily in arms:
Myself and you, son Harry, will towards Wales,
To fight with Glendower and the Earl of March.
Rebellion in this land shall lose his sway,
Meeting the cheque of such another day,
And since this business so fair is done,
Let us not leave till all our own be won.
ANOTHER DAY
That the pursuers took him. At my tent
The Douglas is, and I beseech your grace
I may dispose of him.
King With all my heart.
Prince Then, brother John of Lancaster, to you
This honorable bounty shall belong.
Go to the Douglas, and deliver him
His valor shown upon our crests to-day
Hath taught us how to cherish such high deeds,
Even in the bosom of our adversaries.
John, I thank your grace for this high courtesy,
Which I shall give away immediately.
King Then this remains, that we divide our power.
You, son John, and my cousin Westmoreland
Towards York shall bend you, with your dearest speed,
To meet Northumberland and the prelate Scroop,
Who, as we hear, are busily in arms:
My self and you, son Harry, will towards Wales,
To fight with Glendower and the Earl of March.
Rebellion in this land shall lose his sway,
Meeting the cheque of such another day,
And since this business so fair is done,
Let us not leave till all our own are won.
THE FIRST PART OF HENRY THE FOURTH
[Act 1, Scene 1]
King So shaken as we are, so wan with care,
Find we a time for frighted peace to pant,
And breathe short-winded accents of new broils
To be commenc’d in strands afar remote.
No more the thirsty entrance of this soil
Shall daub her lips with her own children’s blood,
Nor more shall trenching war channel her fields,
Nor bruise her flowerets with the armed hoofs
Of hostile paces. Those opposed eyes,
Which like the meteors of a troubled heaven,
All of one nature, of one substance bred,
Did lately meet in the intestine shock
And furious close of civil butchery,
Shall now in mutual well-beseeming ranks
March all one way, and be no more opposed
SHAKEN
King So shaken as we are, so wan with care,
Find we a time for frighted peace to pant,
And breathe short-winded accents of new broils
To be commenced in strands afar remote.
No more the thirsty entrance of this soil
Shall daub her lips with her own children’s blood,
Nor more shall trench war channel her fields,
Nor bruise her flowerets with the armed hoofs
Of hostile pace. Those opposed eyes,
Which like the meteors of a troubled heaven,
Did lately meet in the intestine shock
And furious close of civil butchery,
Shall now in mutual well-beseeming ranks
March all one way, and be no more opposed
So what exactly did you just read? According to the Academy of American Poets, “Erasure poetry, also known as blackout poetry, is a form of found poetry wherein a poet takes an existing text and erases, blacks out, or otherwise obscures a large portion of the text, creating a wholly new work from what remains.” This technique “may be used as a means of collaboration, creating a new text from an old one and thereby starting a dialogue between the two, or as a means of confrontation, a challenge to a pre-existing text.”
Blackout poetry traces its beginnings back to Tristan Tzara and the Dada movement after World War I, but the genre has become particularly popular in this era of social media platforms like Instagram, which handily lends itself to the technique of blocking out text. Cramer, however, is not an “Instagram Poet.” He’s a poet who has authored nine poetry books, edited an anthology of music poetry, and co-translated the works of the Mexican poet, Jaime Sabines. As you can see from the illustrative examples above, Cramer is emphatically in the “collaboration” camp. As he states in the Introduction, “It honestly feels more than a bit subversive to deface the most revered of texts, but the possibility of collaborating with the greatest author of all time was just too great an opportunity to pass up.” How grateful we are that he did not pass up that opportunity, for otherwise we would not have this glorious addition to the short but growing cannon of erasure poetry.
So if you already have Newspaper Blackout (2010) by Austin Kleon, Kin S Fur: Erasure Poems & New Translations of a Tale from the Brothers Grimm (2018) by Margaret Yocom, Erase the Patriarchy: An Anthology of Erasure Poetry (2020) edited by Isobel O'Hare, and The Ferguson Report: An Erasure (2023) by Nicole Sealey, by all means add the brilliant, wise, funny, irreverent, reverent, lyrical, playful, profound Shakespeare Redacted (2024) by Stephen Cramer. And if you do not yet have any “blackout” books in your poetry collection, by all means make Shakespeare Redacted your first. Or only, for it will be the only one you need.
J. R. Solonche, nominated for the National Book Award, the Eric Hoffer Book Award, and nominated three times for the Pulitzer Prize, is the author of 38 books of poetry and coauthor of another. He lives in the Hudson Valley.
Copy editor: Nancy He
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