Matthew Schmidt

Back to Issue 1.3

from “on of My,” an erasure of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” (1892)

A poetic page with scattered text discussing resignation, emotional state, breathing, and balance, featuring phrases like 'I resign myself to what you mean,' 'breathing broad and convulsive breaths,' and 'balance as stable doctrine.'
Page of a book or document with scattered words and phrases, including 'folding words,' 'En-Masse,' 'alone with flaw,' 'baffling,' 'Reality,' 'a grammar,' 'dangerous,' 'And,' and 'fugitive.'
Page with the number 24 and the name Walt Whitman.
Poem with scattered words about acceptance, voices, connection, forbidden touch, delicate fingers, death, and miracles.
Text-based image with scattered words including 'I emit', 'A window', 'freshly', 'oblique', 'I', 'change', 'a', and 'master'.
Page with a black number 25 in the top left corner and a blank, white space.
A blank white sheet of paper with scattered black words: 'now', 'go', 'measure', and 'My merit'.
A page from a book with the number 26 at the top, containing a poem or quote about listening and hearing, with words scattered around the page.
A visual poem with scattered words: "laugh," "a," "sentence," "of approaching cars," "fill," "his mouth," and "T."
A minimalistic text image with the number '27' in the upper left corner, the word 'is' near the center, and the word 'enough' on the right side.
A white background with the word "happy" written in small black letters near the bottom right.
Poetry page with words and phrases arranged in a scattered layout, including 'quivering', 'new identity', 'prurient', 'udder of my heart', 'no denial', 'of sunlight', 'bribed to', 'maraud', 'my wits', 'the greatest traitor', 'I we my', 'me', 'villain', and 'Unclench your floodgates'.
Blank white page with page number 29 in the top left corner.
A minimalistic poem with the phrases 'Blind loving', 'ache', and 'prolific and golden' displayed in black text on a white background, spaced apart across the image.
A black-and-white page with scattered words and phrases, including 'All truths,' 'resist the surgeon,' 'big as,' 'Logic and,' 'night drives,' and 'boundlessly out,' arranged in a seemingly random pattern.
A page from a book showing the number 31 and the phrase "a grain of sand" with an illustration of a single grain of sand.
A poem written in black text on a white background, mentioning various natural elements such as gneiss, coal, moss, fruits, grains, roots, and birds, with repeated lines about being in vain, referencing the mastodon, buzzard, snake, elk, and razor-bill'd auk, followed by a line about followers.
A digital page with scattered words and phrases, including 'I could turn', 'placid', 'kneel', 'possess', 'Myself', 'forever', 'like', 'exclusive', 'stallion', and 's', with a small number '32' in the top left corner.
A white background with black lowercase text scattered across, reading 'but I need you' and 'embrace'.
Poetry with words like sierra, sea-gaps, parsnips, furious fish, and the phrase 'it is true' on a white background.
A poetic poem with words such as 'Scaling,' 'cheese-cloth,' 'ere,' 'life,' 'forsakes,' 'water,' and 'muster' arranged on a white background.
A white background with black text that reads: "the limitless and lonesome laugh Pleas'd with".
Poetry text about reaching a port, madness, hunting in ice, and a personal place.
Poetry text with phrases about a ruined city, invading thighs and lips, dripping heroes, prepared graves, and swallowing calm.
Text layout with words like 'garments', 'feel', 'not so unhappy', 'I am again an indispensable gurgle' scattered across a white background.

Matthew Schmidt’s poems have been published in Pleiades, The Seattle Review, Hawaii Pacific Review, and elsewhere. He is an associate poetry editor at Fairy Tale Review and the Co-Founding Editor of the Iowa-based literary editing and educational nonprofit 1-Week Critique.