Artist Statement:
All of these pieces are sourced from the October 1952 edition of FATE magazine, which I happened upon in a Birmingham, AL bookshop. The process of creating these erasures was as follows: I’d rip a page out randomly and hold a Sharpie above it, staring at the words but not actually reading them, until certain words and phrases stood out. I’d then look for paths, or coordinated shapes among the words and phrases. FATE is the magazine but also the feeling. I’d cross out whatever was not part of the path-shape. Because I always used Sharpie, never pencil, I several times crossed out words and phrases I’d believed to be part of the path-shape. But I was wrong; it was FATE.
O. Neace is a poet, translator, MFA student and assistant editor of poetry and nonfiction at Black Warrior Review. O’s work has appeared in Moon City Review, Milanga o muerte and elsewhere.