What is an erasure poem?

Erasure poetry is a genre of
"found art" applied to poetry creation. The principle of this genre of found poetry is
that the poet comes across or selects a written text, thus "finds" it, then erases words
around other selected words, which will create a poetic
expression.

Thus an erasure
poem is the result of this found art
process.

To create an erasure
poem, select or come across a written text. Look it over or read it over. Select words
that express a poetic feeling, experience, sensation or thought that you have in mind or
that comes to mind as you scan your found art text. Now, erase the other words of the
text that do not participate in the expression of your poetic creation. This will then
be an erasure poem. Selected words may be left standing where they are on the page,
in situ, or they may be arranged on a new page into lines and
stanzas.

Using the "found" text of this answer, we might
create an erasure poem here for an example. I've mentally "erased" all words but these,
starting from the top line and accumulating words downward. I've taken them out
of in situ and arranged them in one three-line
stanza.

EXAMPLE ERASURE
POEM

found creation comes across
words
erasure process sensation mind scan
participate creation poem
recast