CHAPTER ONE WITH ANNALISE NASSANI

You are invited to read Annalise Nassani's contribution to "Chapter One" with her essay on erasure poetry HERE. Here's an excerpt:

It was just after lunch when the poetry graduate student teacher dumped a pile of discount books onto the table. There were only ten of us, all high school students, sitting in an air-conditioned classroom of some Columbia University building. She handed each student a random book plus some Sharpies. I remember mine had yellowed pages and chewed-up corners. The lesson that day was on erasure poetry. She demonstrated this by ripping a page out of a book and blacking paragraphs of text until only a handful of words were visible. At once, it felt thrilling and blasphemous to be permitted to destroy literature, even if it was books no one wanted. That August afternoon provided plenty of light through several open windows as we began. Sounds of ripping paper and the strong scent of markers filled the room. I don’t remember the title of the book I had nor the poem I created. Yet. I never forgot the joy of taking words from a page to create something new.