Erasure
E. Kristin Anderson 鈥�05 talks about the power of poetry, the erasure poetry technique and how popular culture informs her work.
E. Kristin Anderson 鈥�05 seemed poised to pursue a career as a journalist. Sixteen years later, she achieved a byline in The New York Times. However, there鈥檚 a twist. Anderson jumped off the journalism track some time ago, deciding to expand and diversify her literary pursuits. As a result, The New York Times came calling not because Anderson had a hot scoop or a new expose, but because she had a delicious command of the written word. Using the newspaper鈥檚 own words, she created a work of blackout, or erasure, poetry and provided a brief instructional guide on how others could follow.
Timothy Stevens: Why did you, someone who started out in journalism, begin to focus on poetry?
E. Kristin Anderson: I think part of what works for me with poetry is that I鈥檓 not a very linear thinker. Especially as I鈥檓 getting older and my brain has been changing. Poetry comes in short bursts, and while I often can鈥檛 concentrate for very long to work on long-form writing these days, I can park myself at a caf茅, put on my headphones, and get a poem onto the page in maybe an hour. I usually have a running text thread with myself that鈥檚 all notes鈥攖houghts, phrases that sound nice or weird, facts I picked up from a podcast鈥攁nd I use that hour to put a first draft together like a puzzle before I space out and get distracted.
TS: While you鈥檝e been writing poetry for some time now, earlier this year you achieved something of a milestone, being published in The New York Times. How did that happen?
EKA: Honestly? I think part of it is that I keep my DMs open on Twitter. Which can be risky鈥攂eing a woman in public means sometimes the DMs that come through are less than pleasant. But sometimes it鈥檚 a young writer who needs help with a tough situation, and sometimes it鈥檚 an editor with The New York Times who is looking for something of an expert in the field of erasure poetry and maybe heard you鈥檙e cool.
TS: Was being published in The New York Times ever a personal or professional goal of yours?
EKA: The year after I graduated from 糖心TV, I actually interviewed for a position at The Times鈥攐n my flip phone in a hotel bathroom, because nowhere else in the building seemed to have reception. There was a time when I wanted to be a journalist, but that wasn鈥檛 my path. I am very proud to have been in The Times, and it felt really fantastic, but it鈥檚 truly more of a happy surprise that I had the opportunity to write for the paper.
TS: Now that you have topped that peak, do you have your eyes on any other proverbial mountains?
EKA: I have like eight novels on my hard drive, and every year
I鈥檓 like, this is the year I鈥檓 going to revise one of these and start sending it out again, and then I get some weird idea like writing an entire collection about trauma and The X-Files, and there goes six months. So my primary goal is getting a full-length collection out there. I have several chapbooks to my name, and I love the format of the chapbook and the excellent editors I鈥檝e worked with, but this is a next step for me.
TS: Your published poem was a very specific form of poetry called erasure poetry. What is erasure poetry, and how does it work?
EKA: Erasure is a technique where you use an existing text to write a poem by removing part of the text and leaving a select series of words that become a poem. Some writers use a visual format, blacking out the words they鈥檙e not using with a Sharpie or even illustrating the page or collaging around the poem.
I did a blackout poem for The Times on request, but I draft most of my poems using words in the order that they appear in the source text and then type the draft into a Word document so it can look very much like a traditional poem鈥攊t just has a source citation at the bottom.
I鈥檝e worked a lot with Stephen King novels over the past few years, which has been fascinating as a woman who grew up in Maine. I鈥檝e also mostly been approaching his most problematic books with the intention of flipping some of his sexist tropes on their heads.
TS: You utilize pop culture as the inspiration for your work. In addition to Stephen King, the artists or works that have inspired many of your poems include the musician Prince and the television show The X-Files. What do you find artistically inspiring and fulfilling about drawing from pop culture?
EKA: I think that pop culture is a through line for all of us. We don鈥檛 all grow up with access to MoMA, but most of us have read a comic book or seen an episode of 鈥淟aw & Order.鈥� Most of us have heard a song by Prince or Sheryl Crow. I think these parts of culture are just as important as any other thing we can write about.
And often these pop culture moments can be a point of entry鈥攆or both reader and writer鈥攖o more intense or difficult stories. My Scully (a character on The X-Files) poems were largely informed by my experiences with medical trauma, abuse and misogyny. Scully鈥檚 journey through cancer, through being a highly qualified woman in a boys鈥� club, through the paranormal鈥攊t all provides a grounding mechanism for my stories. If you know Scully, in a way, you know me.
TS: In general, are you a writer who needs to lock herself in and write during specific times, or do you find yourself more comfortable with only writing when the moment seizes you?
EKA: There was a time when I could write wherever, whenever. At the end of 2015, I was hospitalized with kidney failure and found out I had a rare autoimmune disorder. The treatments were difficult, and my brain never really recovered from being on chemo and prednisone. PTSD affects me every day. And the only way I鈥檝e been able to keep writing is to create time and space for it.
I have a routine. I go to my Starbucks, I decide what I want to achieve for the day (like draft one new poem, or set a word count), and I put a certain amount of time into it. This past year has been particularly hard, though patio seating has helped. But without routine and this sort of specific focus (often with a reward鈥攍ike, you can go home and watch your show when you finish writing for the day), I don鈥檛 know that I鈥檇 ever get much done these days.
TS: What are you currently working on?
EKA: Right now, I鈥檓 actually in the middle of a group project I do with a bunch of poets twice a year called the Poeming. In October, for spooky season, we take the entire catalog of one horror or thriller author and divvy up the books and every participating writer makes 31 poems using their assigned book and found poetry techniques. In April, for National Poetry Writing Month, we all use the same book. This year, it鈥檚 The Silence of the Lambs, and it鈥檚 getting really weird.
I鈥檓 also working on finishing up a manuscript of response poems written after songs by women artists鈥擜imee Mann, Tori Amos, Jenny Lewis, Taylor Swift, Kesha. I鈥檓 sort of bouncing political issues and personal traumas and experiences off the songs鈥攎aybe a way of singing along, maybe a poet鈥檚 version of a cover. But they seem to be resonating with folks, and they鈥檙e finding homes in magazines, many online. Online magazines have been such a gift for poetry. Literary journals can be hard to access, but all you need to read an online mag is an internet connection.
TS: For those who want to read more of your work, where should they go? Do you have any kind of social media presence people can keep up with to stay current on your work?
EKA: I鈥檓 very much a Twitter person鈥攜ou can find me at @ek_anderson. My Instagram is @ekristinanderson, but mostly I just post pictures of the masks I鈥檝e been making for friends and essential workers. Twitter is where I post about writing, recent publications and, lately, hot takes about Star Wars. Don鈥檛 even try to tell me that R2-D2 doesn鈥檛 have badass auntie energy.
TS: Finally, I have to ask about the pen name 鈥淓. Kristin Anderson.鈥� I鈥檓 not wrong that it is a play on Hans Christian Andersen, right? What about the Danish writer most famous for fairy tales appealed to you, if he did at all?
EKA: It鈥檚 actually mostly my name. Kristin is my middle name, and Anderson is my grandmother鈥檚 middle name. She and I are very close, so it鈥檚 kind of a nod to her. But my legal name is common, and I wanted something that was googleable and memorable鈥攖he Danish author helped with the latter. But it鈥檚 also been good for safety, keeping a little of my name to myself.
Timothy Stevens 鈥�03 is a staff writer and social media manager at The Spool.
Waving Shadows
By E. Kristin Anderson
I was fine鈥攔ight up to the moment
I survived, the heart as clumsy
as floodlights in the morning.
I saw that tree, that chaos twisted
on the surface of the water and
I was living in telephones.
Silver, I鈥檓 turning the camera now,
rising, a weapon awakened
by hissing static. It was
my mouth, sharp and warm and
sideways鈥攜ou know the danger
I feel the weight of, the way
I went down into the basement
and shut off memory and memory鈥�
This is an erasure poem. Source material: Crichton, Michael. 鈥淛urassic Park.鈥� Mass Market ed. Ballantine, 2015. 271-285. Print.