Erasure Poetry, Tom Cruise Running, & Tom Waits
Erasure Poetry, Tom Cruise Running, & Tom Waits
My wife says these two Toms DO NOT belong together!
Welcome to WORDINGHOUSE, #3. This is the weekly newlseter where I throw 3 things at you that interest me, and I hope they interest you, too. Let’s get to it …
What I’m not making enough of— Erasure, a form of poetry.
You’ve probably heard the concept there is no original thought. Everything comes from something else that was already created. Well, erasure poems are exactly that.
So what’s an erasure poem?
It’s a form of found poetry—you find it in other people’s words, sentences, books. It’s a you find/ you create situation.
Erasure poems seem to be getting more and more popular. My son even said they made erasures in school one day. In a way, making an erasure, or a blackout poem, is a creative prompt itself. You don’t even need to know what direction you are headed in. As with a puzzle, the act of doing it creates it.
So those who don’t believe they have what it takes to write a poem, erasure’s a wonderful way to start.
After all, the words are already there. You simply need to play around with them—find the ones you wish to keep; black-out the rest.
I purchased Sara J Sloat’s Hotel Almighty about a year ago. I’ve probably pulled it off the shelf fifty times since. I’ve totally lost myself inside it a few times.
It’s 86 pages of erasure made from the original text of the Stephen King’s novel, Misery.
What Sloat makes of it is something completely different. She not only picks and places her delightful poetics out of what was a horror novel, but she also uses mixed-media collage to black-out words, make designs, and create as if each page is a small canvas.
Guess what? I made an erasure, too. Wanna see how I did it?
To start, I thought I’d find a text with no active copyright (so that it’s totally kosher to use and share with you). It’s always best to find something in the public domain.
The Library of Congress is a great outlet for source texts to practice erasure on. I found The Tongue-Cut Sparrow.
This book is basically poetry already. Here’s a page I chose, before, and then after …
You don’t have to write it out like this, but I like to see the words I chose all together. Here’s what we have:
The sparrow gave light
And when they
opened it and looked they found
They never expected anything like this, more
took more in - at once
OK, I’m satisfied with that!
Check out these three great erasure poets/artists: Sarah J Sloat (this links directly to her portfolio), Mary Ruefle and Tom Phillips.
Please, please, pretty please, if you practice erasure poetry, do share it with me. I’d love to see what you make.
What I never grow tired of watching— Tom Cruise running, "Actor, producer, running in movies since 1981" (that right there is from Tom’s Insta Bio).
See:
When I wrote about sprinting last week, it got me thinking about our first Tom of the week.
True, the mere mention of “Tom Cruise” connotes something different for everyone. Some people instantly think of Scientology. Others cringe and reflect on his jumping onto Oprah’s couch all head over toes for Katie Homes with that "here’s Johnny!” look in his eyes. And some just think about poor Goose.
I think of the man running.
I must admit my bias up front: I think Tom Cruise is an excellent actor. Also, for this running piece, I am going to exclude all Mission Impossible films from my favorites sequences. Because there are some remarkable runs in that series, and I just want to be fair to all the other running scenes.
For me, these are my favorite Tom Cruise running moments, all in movies I enjoy.
The Firm
The clip below is just one example of great running in The Firm. Young Tom Cruise, running for his life with tie and trench flapping in the wind. Briefcase in hand, while a chaotic piano strikes keys every which dissonant way it can to tweak your last nerve—it’s a wonderful viewing experience.
Jerry Maguire
The clip below takes Tom’s moody blue airport run and places it on perpetual loop to one of the tracks used in the film (a beautiful ambient song). I’ve seen Jerry Maguire an embarrassing number of times. What I love about this running sequence is it is really the end result of a culmination of epiphanies Jerry has experienced throughout the film—but this time he’s finally woken up—all the way—to what really matters in life and he is running straight to it.
Collateral
Bad Tom Cruise is good. Particularly grey-haired, super stylish, bad Tom Cruise. Also, he’s a real good runner. This isn’t just me talking. According to Caryl Smith Gilbert, a four-time NCAA champion coach, his technique really started shaping up around the time of Collateral. This is a Michael Mann film, so you can also expect, sleek, sexy cityscapes and a Chris Cornell song.
If you want to learn more about Tom Cruise running, here is an ESPN deep-dive article that touches on his size, hands, technique, pure speed, mental toughness and theatricality.
Who I never get tired of listening to— Tom Waits, a gravelly voiced troubadour that is big in Japan; primarily a musician, but also an actor.
So my wife said Tom Cruise and Tom Waits shouldn’t be uttered in the same breath.
She said it is a travesty, and she thinks Tom Waits would be disappointed in me, too.
One Tom does not belong here! she says.
See, she and I share a deep appreciation for Tom Waits. We went to a Waits concert when our now 15 year-old son was still in her belly; maybe that night at the Fox Theater in St. Louis blessed our son somehow, as Tom sang Chocolate Jesus through his megaphone and tossed confetti all over the floor. Tom must be at least partly responsible for my son’s musical talent … right?
Like Cruise, Waits is not everyone’s jam. He’s one of those artists that is, for some, an acquired taste. But I like my coffee bitter and black. Just like I like my Tom Waits gravely and gritty.
And I’ll take him just as he is. With train smoke and whiskey.
In one of my favorite art-house films, Down By Law, by Jim Jarmusch, Waits plays one of three main characters, alongside Roberto Benigni and John Lurie. Waits has had more recent acting appearances in the films like The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and Licorice Pizza.
Now. This is difficult.
But my 3 favorite Tom Waits albums are Mule Variations, Rain Dogs and Closing Time.
This is even more difficult, REALLY difficult—like it kinda hurts inside my heart to have to choose—but my 3 favorite Tom Waits songs are:
Rosie— I love this song so much and it will always be one of my favorites as this was my wife’s and my song at our wedding, our first dance.
16 Shells from a Thirty-Ought Six— This is just pure, iconic Waits. The percussion, O’ the percussion, and the guitar and the voice and the lyrics; soooo good. It’s a head bobber.
Come On Up to the House— Not to be morbid, but being morbid for a moment—or can I just call this being spiritual?—this is one of my two funeral songs. I want this or this, or both, to be played in celebration of my spirit entering the one, everlasting, great poem of thereafter.
Possibly my favorite lyric in all of the three songs is from Come On Up to the House:
All your cryin’ don’t do no good
Come on up to the house
Come down off the cross, we can use the wood
You gotta come on up to the house
For fun, there is a cool tribute album called Come On Up to the House: Women Sing Waits with awesome female artists like Aimee Mann, Phoebe Bridgers, Patti Griffin, Rosanne Cash and Iris Dement doing Waits covers.
I’m fortunate to live in a world where video allows me to cheat and add a 4th favorite song without tossing my throw 3 things theme out the door. All I have to do is add the video and not say another word about it.
Plus,,,,,, at the end of each post, we’ll be highlighting a Weekly Word—
I had a beautiful, poetic, word, one of my favorites picked out for this week. And then something happened. I kept hearing a specific word over and over again that I couldn’t get out of my head.
Spatchcock!
In my opinion, no matter what seeing, hearing, or saying this word does to you—makes you laugh; blush?—there is something about this one word that just feels good to say out loud. I think I might trade a four letter word in for it. Say spatchcock! when I get really mad.
How this happened: my neighbors had us over for dinner a few weeks ago and we heard about how said neighbor is a master of the spatchcock. Basically, he makes a really tasty bird by using the spatchcock method. For those of us in the US, Thanksgiving is upon us. So why not spatchcock?
Spatchcock
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines this transitive verb ( a verb expressing an action carried from the subject to the object):
1. To prepare (as fowl) for eating as or as if a spatchcock
2. To introduce by or as if by interpolation or insertion.
Used in a sentence: my neighbor does a mean spatchcock. Or, the father turkey said to his baby turkeys, “it’s mid-November, just be safe out there—mother and I don’t want you to get spatchcocked. Or, when there is nobody else in bed beside me, I sleep spatchcocked.
I am making a promise to you readers right now. I will use the word spatchcock in a poem. It may take time, but once it is published, I promise—
I’ll share that #*!%@ &! spatchcock with you.
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