Original Text: Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace
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Hi Khaya,
I think you did an amazing job capturing the essential meaning of “Consider the Lobster” by David Foster Wallace. In the selection you chose, Wallace argues that while tourism is great for an economy, places are “better, realer, without you”. By eliminating many unnecessary words used by Wallace, you are able to sharpen his meaning. However, I think you could have gone even further in your elimination to make the meaning even clearer. Specifically, the quote “good for the soul to be a tourist” offers positive information about tourism. While Wallace uses this as an antithesis, I believe you could have eliminated it because it distracts the reader from your main purpose of the erasure poem. Another thing that drew my attention was the way you erased. It seems like you used a black marker to erase certain words. However, when looking very closely I can still make out some of the words. Because only some of the hidden words are visible, it makes the reader wonder what is behind the completely shaded areas. Overall, I really enjoyed reading your erasure poem and thought it did an amazing job at capturing the true meaning of Wallace’s piece.
Sincerely,
Marco