Titanic: Voices From the Disaster
This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
There were a number of things that stood out to me in this erasure poem. I noticed that you underlined the words you wanted to highlight to the reader and put a line through the rest. Although you are drawing attention away from what is crossed out, you purposely left the content visible. The fact that the rest is visible engages the curious reader to try to read, literally, between the lines. The words that are underlined do a great job at adding suspense to the harrowing plot that the reader is aware of, without selling it out completely. This part of the Titanic story is during its final happy moments, but your technique foreshadows its gloomy end by mentioning a letter to his parents that is overly optimistic. I also really enjoyed the extra element that you added by having the before and after pictures be of the same story, but at different parts. After reading the first part I was eager to see how it was going to be altered by crossing out selected parts, but instead I saw a completely different leaf to the overall story. I was not expecting this when reading the erasure poem, but once I realized what I was reading, I thought that this technique was quite clever. The last few words that you underlined still keep me thinking how scary it is that someone could be so wrong about the immediate future.