Chantaisa White 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, “Eventually,” was inspired by Tracy K. Smith’s poem, “Declaration,” from her book Wade in the Water.

 

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

Eventually

By Chantaisa White

 

Respect… we hold… truths to be self evident that all men… created equal…ly..are endowed….the pursuit of happiness…to secure…rights….powers from consent…any form…it is the right of people….to…abolish…and to institute new…principles and…. Happiness… experience…that…mankind…are more…right…to throw such a government…and provide guards… for future…the history of the present…is…history…tyranny…to a candid world..for the public good..we…assembled…good people…that…have full power to…conclude peace