Erasure #poetry "Chalfont" #TwinPeaks. Erasing group conversations from Facebook. Writer's notebook.

I spent the summer reading and watching Twin Peaks, the Return with my wife. If you are not familiar with David Lynch’s show, it is a police/FBI procedural, wrapped in a small town soap opera, wrapped in a inter-dimensional chess match of good and evil; it is surreal and nightmarish, often relying on dream logic. In many ways, Twin Peaks is like a Rorschach ink blot.

Recently I took over the editing at The Broadkill Review, and so I am learning the ropes, learning the schedule, and needless to say editing time cuts into your writing and reading time. Currently, I am tweaking my own work, several poetry and fiction manuscripts, but I need a project, a chore if you will, to stay sharp. Having never done erasure poetry, and having never created any conceptual poetry, I decided to copy large portions of different Twin Peaks theory chats, and erase them, changing punctuation, and verb tenses when I deemed it necessary.  You do not need to know the show, or the mythology to read them.

Conceptual poetry uses pre-existing writing for the "word pool" of the project. There are many ways to skin this cat. I chose erasure, because it's fun. Simple as that. The text was taken from the group, Twin Peaks 2017, whose members included many new cast members. "The conversation around the dinner table was lively."

CHALFONT

Tremond. Three worlds.

Speak Lynch.

Return.

Three worlds.

The message: a hill, three peaks. A Beacon.

All that remains of the earth: Peninsula, Cotton Hill, Mt. Whoredom, Louisburg Square.

No longer Pierre near the end, Pierre pulled a gold coin out of my ear and walked away.

Art precipitates dream through dream.

Grandfather, grandmother,

my grandparent's lake house.

Jumping Man, grandson, one in the same.

Dressing the waiting room

Do not believe.

The lodge. The lodge conceive.