Original Piece #3

The above image is an erasure poem created using a portion of text from an article about a murder on campus in a TKE fraternity house.  The highlighted text reads: NICK ARMSTRONG PLEDGED TAU KAPPA EPSILON / FELL ASLEEP / N / HE NEVER WOKE UP. / THREE in the morning / Clint Hart / T / K / E / and the house / appeared / empty. / beer/ capped the day / . / Enter / the dilapidated, trashed two-story building / surprised to see / other people / tall / skinny, / longish hair / earring / baseball cap backward / . / other, shorter / stockier / brooding scowl / asleep on the couch / Nick Armstrong / the new / pledge / peaceful / bad feeling / trespasser. / take that guy's wallet / "We're not here to steal," / "We're here to kill."  Instead of the conventional erasing that is used in most erasure poems, I used my own way to give some words more emphasis than others.  I highlighted all of the words that I wanted to stand out with a bring red highlight, and changed the color of the other words to a light gray color to contrast the difference.  I also decided to highlight specific letters of words to make them stand out. Instead of highlighting the whole "Tau Kappa Epsilon" I merely just highlighted the first letters of each word, "TKE."  I also use this technique to change "Entering" to "Enter," and "peacefully" to "peaceful."


The target audience of my work, as per usual, is anyone who is a member of, or is interested in Tau Kappa Epsilon.  However, being that this is a bit of a gruesome poem, it will also target those who have an interest in erasure poetry, and those interested in stories of murder.


When I was researching topics about the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity, and learning how to use Eastern Michigan University's database, I came across this article:
http://business.highbeam.com/410545/article-1G1-58459365/murder-campus
The article, entitled "A MURDER ON CAMPUS," described the events leading up to the murder of a pledging fraternity member by the name of Nick Armstrong.  I chose this topic, because the red highlight worked well to illustrate the ideas that the poem portrayed.