The Conveniences and The Inconveniences are not real, or at least not historically authentic in the traditional sense, and the entries found on this site are fiction.
The Conveniences, Inconveniences, and some of the pieces are displayed using blackout-erasure-found poems I’ve written or constructed or uncovered. However that happens.
I taught humanities at a community college for a long time. I started creating these pieces a few years ago to synthesize my long-term interests in women’s history, food history, travel history, and garden history to create some fictional narratives.
I’m working on a mystery novel, and creating the entries has been helping me uncover the themes and develop the characters. The characters’ preferences and voices are showing up through the poetry. It’s been a great help in staying inspired and knowing how a certain character will develop.
And it’s been so much fun to create these blackout/erasure/found poems.
Serious fun, and serious inspiration.
I learned about these types of poetry a few years ago in a community poetry course offered by a colleague who is a poet and teaches creative writing.
I learned more about the poetry from the some of the books listed on my Creativity Inspirations page.
Poetry Sources
I’m very careful to use poetry resources that are in the public domain (out of copyright).
I’ve been collecting late nineteenth-century and early-twentieth-century ephemera for years. Luckily for this application, some of the common (easily obtained) ephemera was in rough shape and therefore suitable for these poems (because I didn’t feel guilty for tearing and marking them up).
Here are two examples:
I’ve also used online texts that are out of copyright.
This type of poetry is challenging and visual.
Making this art is a way to create poetry and meaning at the intersections of different interests, ideas, and materials.
