M.P. Carver

Join us for this two-hour workshop where we will learn about erasure poetry (aka blackout), a unique form of found poetry where a poet removes or obscures words from a text to create something new. Erasure has the power to make the familiar unfamiliar and to explore what is and isn’t said in a text. Different poets find different ways to relate to the source material they choose. From government documents to art pieces, we'll start by discussing some examples then create our own erasure poems. Basic materials such as books and sharpies will be provided. You are welcome to bring your own source material and any additional art supplies you might want.

Workshop leader M.P. Carver is a poet and visual artist from Salem, MA. She is director of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival, miCrO-Founder of Molecule: a tiny lit mag, and teaches creative and digital writing at Salem State University. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Rattle, Mantis, Jubilat, and Love’s Executive Order, among others. She has received funding from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the Essex Community Foundation. In 2023 her poem “In Vitro” was named a finalist in the Connecticut River Review’s Experimental Poetry Contest, and in 2022 her poem “You & God & I” was awarded the New England Poetry Club’s E.E. Cummings Prize.  Her chapbook, Selachipmorpha, was published by Incessant Pipe in 2015, and a chapbook with Lily Poetry Review Books, Hard Up, was released in early 2025.