"poem" broadside #337 : from REMAINS, by Eric Schmaltz

from REMAINS
by Eric Schmaltz
produced for the Lit Bang Pop-Up Shop: Chapbook Exchange, November 26 - December 20, 2015, Toronto, Ontario.
above/ground press broadside #337

This piece is excerpted from a suite of visual poems tentatively titled “REMAINS.” These poems were originally composed in 2013 when I contacted a poet from eastern Canada whom I found on Kajiji. They were offering to write poems on-demand for one dollar per poem. I sent him a series of prompts & requested fifteen. I intended to publish & perform the poems as my own. However, after reading them, I thought they would be better if they were burnt. I individually lit each poem aflame. I then scanned their ashes on a desktop scanner, which resulted in poems like the one included here.

Eric Schmaltz is a writer, reviewer, curator, and editor. His work has appeared in various places online and in print including Open Letter, Rampike, Poetry is Dead, dead (g)end(er), and ditch. Eric lives in Toronto where he co-curates the AvantGarden reading series. In 2014, above/ground press produced his chapbook MITSUMI ELEC. CO. LTD.: keyboard poems.