This cut-up poem is very hard to look at. The colors are just atrocious: almost all the hues are exactly the same value and saturation. This is such a huge no-no in design ( I should know: I attended a lot of art colleges and took Color Theory 101 at each one).

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But, honestly, the intensity is what I love about this and what drew me to the font in the first place. This is a simple cut-up poem. I took the advertisement for an art show and simply rearranged and deconstructed the text that was already there. A few words got abandoned and a few others got re-purposed. (ART from HEART.)

Your prompt? Use the above directions and make something atrocious. Seriously: make an ugly poem.

Other note: In a couple of days, the beautiful Nashville Review is publishing my hybrid CNF-erasure: AMERICAN FAMILY, c. 1985. For a few years I’ve been erasing Garrison Keillor’s novel, Wobegon Boy (for many reasons, which I will not go into right now). This will be the first from this series of erasures to be published. It is hard to find journals open to hybrid work, but Nashville Review is a gorgeous one and I am thrilled to have it appearing there.