Annamarie Trantham is a current undergraduate student at Ursuline College, where she participated in Professor Katharine Trostel’s EN 288 class (“From Rustbelt to Revival: Exploring the Legacy of Segregation, Inequality, and Social Justice through the Lens of the Anisfield-Wolf Canon”) during the Spring 2021 semester. Her erasure poem, “Power,” was inspired by Tracy K. Smith’s poem, “Declaration,” from her book Wade in the Water.

 

Ms. Trantham has also provided a video of her reading her poem:

Note from Ms. Trantham:

This piece was inspired by Tracy K. Smith, and her novel Wade in the Water. In one of the specific pieces from the text, she adopts the style known as ‘erasure poetry’ and created a poem from the Declaration of Independence. I had hoped to capture and tell a different story than Smith, and still use the same text for an erasure poem.

 

Power

By Annamarie Trantham

 

People…are….equal…to secure….rights…whenever any…Government becomes destructive.

 

Evils are sufferable…but…good…people…together…dissolve…hither swarms.

 

People…kept…peace…Armies…independent…and…protect…all parts of the world…transporting…free system…enlarging its Boundaries.

 

Altering…the…Legislatures…power…by declaring…our justice.

 

Hold them…to…unite…states…that…are…all political…ly…dissolved.